


the long way home

by loonyBibliophile



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alice and Hal Cooper Fucking Suck, Alternate Universe - College/University, Anti FP Jones II, F/M, Gen, Multi, Pro Gladys Jones, Social Media AU, youtube au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-03-21 15:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 24,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13743777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyBibliophile/pseuds/loonyBibliophile
Summary: Time passes. People lose touch. Life moves on.But sometimes, fate has other plans.And sometimes, fate has to get creative.(Also known as: The gang falls apart and then falls back together after finding each other on youtube in college. Betty/Jughead centric, likely to feature undetermined side pairings. )





	1. prologue: five years ago

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a short lil prologue to my youtube au! they'll be longer after this, i just wanted to give everyone a feel for where this departs from actual show canon and into my personal fantasy land!

A pair of fifteen year olds huddled in a broken down treehouse, rain drizzling around them. 

“I don’t want to leave. I mean, I do, but I also don’t.” Jughead frowned, wrapping his arms tighter around his best friend, who was leaning against his side.

“It’s what’s best, Juggie.” Betty said, her voice a whisper, and reached up to squeeze his hand. “You deserve a home.” 

“I know. But there’s still stuff I’ll miss here.” 

He doesn’t say he’ll miss her, but she knows. She doesn’t say she’ll miss him, because he knows, and she knows if she tells him, it will only make him even sadder. Betty sets an alarm for five am on her phone, and they fall asleep in the treehouse. Jughead has pulled her into his flannel to keep her warm, and it reminds her intensely of when they were kids. When Jughead still lived just a block from her and Archie, and she’d spend every moment her mother would allow up in this treehouse. The time they were ten years old, and all three of them had fallen asleep out there, and there had been hell to pay from Alice the next morning, but for the first time Betty almost hadn’t cared. The night Gladys left, and Betty had found a crying Jughead in the treehouse and pulled his head into her lap and let him sob until they both fell asleep. That one had gotten her grounded for a month. It had been worth it. 

At five am, Betty goes home for all of two hours. Just long enough to wake up in her own bed and walk downstairs, so no one knows where she was all night, and then immediately she leaves for Jughead’s trailer to help him finish packing and say goodbye. 

Archie is there, and Veronica, and Kevin, and even Cheryl. But there’s a silent agreement that, even over Archie, Betty gets the last hug goodbye. There are tears, and there are promises to keep in touch, and there is a soft, unspoken lingering as Jughead and Betty’s hands slip apart as he gets into the bus to Cleveland. 

They all mean it, when they say it. That they’ll keep in touch. But there’s so much to run away from in Riverdale. Betty holds out the longest, still texting Jughead when her family elects to leave Riverdale right before her senior year, in a desperate bid to fix Hal and Alice’s crumbling marriage. 

It doesn’t work. They get divorced mere months into the move Rochester. Betty gets emancipated, and convinces Polly to move out with her. 

Time passes. People lose touch. Life moves on.  
But sometimes, fate has other plans.   
And sometimes, fate has to get creative.


	2. looking at the stars for a long long time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taking another deep breath, Betty clicked it and scrolled through the smattering of likes, and comments of generic support, until she hit the most recent comment. 
> 
> becca l.  
> hey, do you know @jjonesiii ‘s channel? he has a video series about the same murder, i think. are you guys like, from the same town?

Betty Cooper exhaled, closing her eyes, as she waited for a video upload to finish processing on youtube. Ever since she started her vlog, at the advice of a therapist she saw after becoming emancipated, she’d been very open about her struggles with family and mental health, but she’d never really told the whole story. With yet another anniversary of Jason Blossom’s death approaching, however, something in her felt the need to share everything. So she’d recounted the whole tale of her summer away from home, that first taste of freedom, and how she came home to the world crashing down around her. She talked about her friends, and how Jason’s death had been the beginning of the end and after that everything that felt like home about Riverdale slowly faded away, until finally her own family did too. 

Mostly, she talked about guilt. Her guilt over letting her friends fade away out of a desperation to forget where she came from. Her guilt over letting go of people who may have needed her. Her guilt and regret over should have and what might have beens. 

The idea of people, strangers, seeing her this open, this vulnerable, was terrifying to Betty. But te video finished processing, and she uploaded her custom thumbnail, and hit publish. Then she promptly shut her laptop, silenced her phone, and slipped the headphones attached to her iPod in and left her apartment to go for a jog. 

By the time she took the stairs back up to her apartment, breathing heavy and sweating, most of Betty’s panic had abated. A hot shower to wash off the sweat and city grunge took yet more of the edge off. Before she would let herself look and see if anyone had left comments, she rubbed shea butter into the lingering scars on her palms. The skin got tight and itchy sometimes, and the routine of rubbing lotion into them also helped soothe her nervous hands. 

“Okay. Okay. Time to check.” she mumbled to herself, sitting down at her desk and opening her laptop. “It’s barely been two hours, I doubt anyone has even seen it.” 

The bell in the top tool bar was lit up red, so this was quickly proved false. Taking another deep breath, Betty clicked it and scrolled through the smattering of likes, and comments of generic support, until she hit the most recent comment. 

_becca l.  
hey, do you know @jjonesiii ‘s channel? he has a video series about the same murder, i think. are you guys like, from the same town? _

The username left in the comment left little doubt in Betty’s mind that this person was, indeed, talking about the same murder, and that she did, in fact, know him. Her hands shaking slightly, she clicked on the link to his channel and held her breath. The profile picture is completely unmistakeable. It’s a black and white mirror selfie, taken with an actual camera, and sloping over messy jet black hair is a grey beanie shaped like a crown. Jughead Jones had a youtube channel. He had quite a few videos, organized into playlists. “Readings,” “Coffee Chats,” and “Riverdale Revelations” were the three highlighted on his channel’s main page. She clicked over to his “About” link. 

_Jughead Jones the third, no I won’t tell you my real name. Anthro major with a film/writing double minor at Cornell. Yes, I have a truly horrible amount of homework._

_Read my self-published novel, Sin and Salvation at Sweetwater, at the link._

Betty’s heart dropped into her stomach. He was at Cornell? He was an hour’s drive away from her, after all these years? Betty had almost gone to Cornell, for god’s sake. It had been in her top three! Syracuse, Cornell, and Columbia, with Syracuse winning out. She liked their journalism program best, and she could also study library and information sciences as a bonus. 

But what did she do about this? Did she just… send him a message. What would she even say? 

“Hey Jug, it’s Betty Cooper, sorry I didn’t keep in touch like I promised! Guess what, I live an hour away from you, isn’t that wacky??? Let’s get coffee sometime.”

Assuming she wanted to see him of course. Who was she kidding? Of course she did. He was her best friend, even in a way Archie or Veronica has never managed to be. When he’d left, she’d missed him like hell, and his being gone was one of the reasons she complied when her parents took her away from Riverdale. But did he want to see her? Did he even want to hear from her, after the years of radio silence? There was only one way to find out, she supposed. So she clicked the message link on his profile. 

From: betonbetty  
To: jjonesiii

Subject: Hey…

Body:

Hi,

Um, I feel pretty weird about sending this but. Someone directed me to your “Riverdale Revelations” series after I talked about Jason in a recent video and I couldn’t not send you a message? It’s Betty Cooper. I know I didn’t keep my promise and you probably don’t want to talk to me but I had to say something. 

I’m glad to see you’re out there, somewhere, seemingly doing okay.  
I’d love to hear from you, if you’re willing. I got a new number a few years back, it’s 315-555-4932. 

Maybe we’ll be in touch?  
Betty.

Before she could panic and change her mind, Betty hit send, and buried her face in her hands as the message was whisked off into cyberspace, out of her control. 

She decided it was time for dessert, and set about putting everything on silent, cranking up some upbeat music, and stress baking several dozen cookies. 

::::  
Jughead was working on a research assignment for class when his phone buzzed, his email alerting him to a new message on youtube. He only skimmed it at first, but everything in him froze when he read the name part way through the message.

Betty Cooper. 

Without a second thought, he plugged her name and number into his phone contacts. But before he did anything about replying to her, he decided to see if there was anything on the account she’d messaged him from. 

Her header image was a carefully curated photograph of a pile of textbooks beside several well decorated cupcakes. Her profile picture was her, as smiling and blonde as he remembered, holding a diploma from a high school he didn’t recognize the name of. There was a link to her instagram, which he clicked on, opening it to load in another tab while he read the bio on her Youtube profile. 

_Betty Cooper, amateur baker and aspiring journalist! I study journalism and library/research sciences at Syracuse University. If you have any questions about any of my videos or want one of my recipes, please shoot me a message! :)_

Before typing his own response to Betty, he copied the link to her page on his phone and dropped into a text to Archie. They didn’t talk all the time, but they did talk. The link was joined by the message “I think I found something you and Ron would be interested in.” 

Then he set about staring at the newly added contact to his phone and deciding what the hell to say.  
::::

By the time she was willing to look at her phone or laptop, Betty had baked roughly three dozen cookies, and had another dozen in the oven. She didn’t have high hopes that Jughead would respond at all, let alone within hours of her sending the message, but she couldn’t resist the urge and picked her phone up anyway. 

Accept text from Unknown? The screen blinked at her.  
Betty slid the bar across the screen to indicate yes, and opened the message with her eyes clenched shut. 

From: Unknown Sender  
To: 315-555-4932

got your message. this is jughead.

Another text rolled in.

From: Unknown Sender  
To: 315-555-4932

you probably could have guessed that. sorry. i didn’t really know what else to say. 

Betty let out the breath she’d been holding, shaking slightly. She saved the number to her contacts under “Jughead” and resisted the urge to add the crown emoji, the way she had back in high school. 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Hi!! I… actually didn’t really expect you to answer.

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Not that I didn’t want you to! I did! 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

I just didn’t know if you’d actually want to talk to me.

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

you were my best friend, betty. i talked to archie after the whole grundy debacle back in high school, i can talk to you after a few years of mutually imposed radio silence.  


From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

syracuse, huh?

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Cornell, huh?

The conversation devolved from there as the old friends quickly fell back into their old pattern of banter as they caught up on their lives. Betty found herself grinning as she pulled the last of the cookies from the oven to cool. Jughead had quickly friended her on Facebook and followed her on instagram, even going as far as to shoot her links to Veronica and Archie’s relevant pages. She was almost dizzy with information from her past, and surprisingly okay with it. 

It wasn’t like Betty had never wanted to reach out to her old friends before. She loved them. They had been there for each other during a very important and trying time in each other’s lives. But ever since she moved away from Riverdale, she had feared that reaching out would send her reeling into old emotions she’d long since conquered. Her embarrassing childhood crush on Archie. Her close bond with Veronica and all the ways her jealousy had complicated that. Jughead, and whatever had been almost but not quite happening between them when he left for Cleveland all those years ago. 

While she awaited his reply to her last text, Betty opted to flip through his instagram feed. It was mostly behind the scenes photos from film projects he was working on for school, with a smattering of personal photos, like selfies, pictures of dogs at an animal shelter, and pictures of his sister JB. Altogether, it was very Jughead, and much more artsy than her cheery feed full coffee and pastry photos, video bloopers, grinning selfies, and school paper bylines. 

Her phone buzzes with a new message.

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

you know what’s funny? i don’t have friday courses right now either

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

meet me in the middle next friday for coffee?

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

noon at the sinfully sweet cafe in homer?

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

I would love that! 

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

awesome  
i have a meeting with my film crew i’ll talk to you soon

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Break a leg!

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

… I’m glad you answered, juggie.

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

i’m glad you found me, betts. 

Betty smiled, and pushed back from her computer, walking with purpose towards her kitchen, for the copy of the family recipes she’d gotten from Polly. She needed a specific cupcake recipe from her childhood. There was a video percolating in her brain about baking and childhood nostalgia, and she couldn’t think of a better time to get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo! first proper chapter! let me know what you guys think so far!


	3. people like us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey everybody!” the her in her headphones said cheerfully. “For my baking project this week, I decided to make something I haven’t in years. I’ve been thinking about making a video like this for awhile, and then something happened that I’ll get into in another video, probably, that sort of gave me the push I needed. So, today’s video is about nostalgia, where we come from, and what I call my ‘Special Surprise Sandwich Cookies’, which are what I would make for my friends for birthdays, bad days, and most holidays back in middle school and high school. Today’s batch, specifically, is going to be butterscotch chip with marshmallow fluff.”

It was the following Wednesday, and Betty was importing her recorded baking footage to her laptop and going over the script she’d used to record, noting places she remembered adding something while filming. She always recorded from a script, because she always added captions to her videos, and it just made the process easier. 

_Betty’s Special Surprise Sandwich Cookies_ she typed into the save file name. 

The footage finished importing, and she skimmed through it for a good screenshot to use as a teaser and post on instagram. She always teased her videos, but she made a special effort when it came to her baked goods. And this week’s baking video was special. She hadn’t made butterscotch sandwich cookies since she left Riverdale. She found a shot she liked and smiled, saving it and sending it to herself for easy access from her phone for posting later, and then set to work on her transcript and captions, headphones on to catch any changes she’d made during filming.

“Hey everybody!” the her in her headphones said cheerfully. “For my baking project this week, I decided to make something I haven’t in years. I’ve been thinking about making a video like this for awhile, and then something happened that I’ll get into in another video, probably, that sort of gave me the push I needed. So, today’s video is about nostalgia, where we come from, and what I call my ‘Special Surprise Sandwich Cookies’, which are what I would make for my friends for birthdays, bad days, and most holidays back in middle school and high school. Today’s batch, specifically, is going to be butterscotch chip with marshmallow fluff.”

Betty took notes for a time, staring intently at her screen, and scribbling notes about captions and edits on her script, until her neck started to ache and she decided to was time for a break. She put her notebook down and picked her phone up instead, electing to post her teaser picture on instagram. Before she could chicken out, she added an extra note to the caption and hit ‘post’. 

Content with her choices, she abandoned her desk chair and laptop to curl up on the sofa with a book. Specifically, Jughead’s book. She’d picked a copy up from the link on his youtube page so she could read it before their coffee meet up. Her childhood best friend was an author, she obviously had to read the book, talk to him about it, and then force him to sign it. Plus, she was there for a lot of the events the book was based on. Some of them she was pretty sure she’d told Jughead about herself, after he moved, when they were still in close and constant contact. 

There were a solid few months there where she’d snail mail him local articles, and text and email him all the theories on what was going down about Jason. He even remote wrote and edited some pieces for the school paper for her. She still had those issues somewhere, preserved in a photo album or scrapbook of some kind. In some ways, Riverdale had been her personal hell, but it was also the location of some of her most cherished memories. That was home, after all, she mused to herself. Ever complicated. 

While fictionalized Jughead is recounting the closure of the Twilight Drive In, or the Spotlight Theatre as it’s called in _Sin and Salvation at Sweetwater,_ Betty’s phone buzzes. An instagram notification floats on her lockscreen.

_jonesiii: i can’t believe you think i’m capable of forgetting your baking. offended, cooper._

Betty smiled, and put down her book to shoot Jughead a text message. Her phone had been busier the past few days than it had been in years. Jughead had sent her info to Archie and Veronica, who had promptly reached out to her on social media to get her new number, and they’d been blowing up her phone ever since. Well, mostly Veronica had. But it was nice. Betty had missed her even more than she’d noticed she had, and waking up to a series of frantic texts that all began ‘B!!!!!’ was genuinely kind of heartwarming. 

Spurred on by how nice to was to reconnect, she’d used Facebook to hunt down her other close friend from Riverdale, Kevin Keller, who had been more than happy to accept her friend request and immediately, much like Veronica, begin spamming her with messages like no time had passed since they last talked. 

Oddly enough, everyone was somewhere in New York. Kevin was at the New School, Archie was at Tisch, and Veronica had done a two year expedited program through NYU, graduated, and promptly opened her own non-profit to benefit families damaged by corrupt corporations. Archie was actually on Youtube too, and Veronica had a mostly unused channel but appeared as a singer in a handful of Archie’s videos. The videos that weren’t recordings of Archie’s songs were either short personal vlogs, gig videos, or music tutorials. The sparse few videos on Veronica’s channel were mostly silly, personal videos and then a handful of recordings from benefits she hosted. 

Moving to the kitchen to put away cookies, Betty went to slip her phone into her pocket, only for it to begin ringing. She pulled it out, and smiled when she saw her sister’s name glowing from the screen. 

“Hey Polly. What’s up?” she slid the phone onto the counter, turning the speakerphone on, and set about putting cookies into tupperware boxes. 

“Well, I was just taking a moment to myself a few moments ago, scrolling through instagram, when what pops into my feed but a new post from you…. where you seem to have tagged Jughead? When did you get back in touch?”

“It’s recent. A few days ago.” Betty leaned down, rummaging through a cupboard for a tin she could reuse to pack some cookies for Jughead when she saw him on Friday. 

“Wow.” 

“Yeah,” Betty lines the bottom of the tin with plain butterscotch cookies, then starts stacking the marshmallow sandwich ones on top “He uh, also put me back in touch with Archie and Veronica, and the whole thing nudged me into reaching out to Kevin. So we’re all talking again.” 

“I’m really proud of you, Betty.” Polly’s smile was audible over the phone, and even though she couldn’t be seen, Betty shrugged and smiled back. 

“Jug’s actually just over in Ithaca, at Cornell. We’re gonna meet in Homer for coffee and catch up on Friday, neither of us have classes that day.”

“I’m glad you’re talking to those guys again. Especially Jughead. I think it will be good for you. Anyway, I have to go, the twins have ballet class. I just wanted to grill you! Love you, Betty.”

“Love you too, Pol.” Betty says with a chuckle and a good natured eye roll, before the call ends. 

With the cookies all packed away and the dishwasher loaded, Betty moved back to her desk, pushing her laptop to the back and pulling a yellow notebook out of a drawer. She flipped through it to the spread for the current month in her bullet journal, and took a pink highlighter to a couple of upcoming dates. Coffee with Jughead, a term paper due date, a therapy appointment, and meal planning for the next two weeks. Unable to resist the playful urge, she pulls a gold gel pen from the mug of utensils on her desk, and doodles a little star, indicating importance in her key, next to her coffee meeting with Jughead. 

She snapped a picture of the page and attached it to a text message.

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Look, you get a gold star. :P

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

golly gee miss cooper! do i get a sticker too?

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

also betts, what the fuck is that notebook. have you finally gone full virginia woolf on me? 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

It’s a bullet journal, Juggie. 

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

yeah that name isn’t helping your case. 

Smiling, Betty set her phone aside and went back to work on editing her video.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> instagram post made by me using a .ai file found online and my own photograph. hope yall enjoyed!


	4. don't need much, just some

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From: V  
> To: 315-555-4932
> 
> B!!! Are you nervous? Are you excited? Are you aflutter? Twitterpated?
> 
> From: Polly  
> To: 315-555-4932
> 
> Drive safe and good luck! The twins send love! xxxx
> 
> From: Jughead  
> To: 315-555-4932
> 
> betty i need your help with a fashion decision of grave importance.

On Friday morning, the day of reckoning, Betty Cooper wakes up at five am. She puts on an upbeat playlist on her iPod and goes for a run before even checking her phone. There’s too much nervous energy in her body to do anything but go straight to pounding pavement. The rhythm of running and the cool morning air helps clear her head, and she manages to make it back to her apartment a little after six to jump in the shower. 

Halfway through washing her hair, Betty curses to herself as she remembers she didn’t bother to eat anything, not even a banana, before her run this morning. That was one habit she had to try really, really hard not to slip back into. When she’d moved out of her parents’ house, not puncturing her palms with her nails and not falling into the trap of the Alice Cooper Diet were her two first goals. The third had been not obsessing over things she couldn’t change, like having forgotten to eat something. There wasn’t anything she could do about it now, since she’d already run, and she was covered in soap in a warm shower. She would eat an extra nutritious breakfast after she got out, and add ‘Breakfast before runs’ to the next few days of her to-do lists to make sure it didn’t happen again. 

After she gets out of the shower, she follows through the rest of her routine as always, ending with rubbing shea butter into the scars of her palms. With her hair still wrapped in a towel, she pulled on a robe and walked out to the kitchen to eat and have a cup of coffee, snagging her phone on the way. There’s a handful of texts waiting for her. 

From: V  
To: 315-555-4932

B!!! Are you nervous? Are you excited? Are you aflutter? Twitterpated?

From: Polly  
To: 315-555-4932

Drive safe and good luck! The twins send love! xxxx

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

betty i need your help with a fashion decision of grave importance.

Jughead’s text is accompanied by a picture of three identical pairs of grey suspenders, so she ignores that for now to snark at him later and responds to Veronica while she waits for her coffee to finish dripping. 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: V

Excited, yes, nervous, always, but those last two? Please Ronnie, it’s not a date. It’s two old friends catching up for coffee! 

A reply comes in almost immediately. 

From: V  
To: 315-555-4932

Of course! Old friends! The most platonic of companions!

From: V  
To: 315-555-4932

I have SO many photos of you and I just like this one, B.  


From: V  
To: 315-555-4932

Can you feel me rolling my eyes in Manhattan all the way out in Syracuse?

From: 315-555-4932  
To: V

Veronica! Stop! We are meeting to catch up as friends!

From: 315-555-4932  
To: V

Feelings from high school that may or may not have existed are not relevant!!!

On that note, Betty decided to stop replying to Veronica’s texts for the morning and turned her attention to Polly after sweetening her coffee. 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Polly

Thanks! I’ll call you later, or text you, and tell you how it went! Tell the twins I love them, and you!

Since it was nearing eight in the morning, Polly would be unlikely to respond, getting the twins off to kindergarten and then settling in to her home office from the day, so she put that out of her mind for the time being. Sliding a few pieces of whole grain sourdough into her toaster, Betty pulled the peanut butter from the cabinet, a banana from on top of the fridge, and a hard boiled egg from the fridge. 

“No, not nutritious enough.” she mumbled to herself, and headed back to the fridge to snag a couple slices of ham from one she cooked over the previous weekend and settled in to eat and finish replying to messages.

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Hm… Tough one Juggie. I think I need a visual aid. :P

As Betty took a bite of toast, she snorted when her phone buzzed and revealed a picture of Jughead wearing all three pairs of suspenders over a white tank top. 

Wow, his arms had not gotten any less attractive. No, no, that’s not the point, she thought to herself. 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Definitely the grey pair. 

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

thanks for the infinite wisdom betts. ;P

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Anytime. See you soon!! :D

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

Drive safe!

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

back atcha, cooper.

Betty grinned at herself and set to work finishing her breakfast so she could get dressed and hit the road. She was nervous, of course, but she was also excited. And that excitement made her feel accomplished. Like she finally had concrete proof of the progress she’d made in the past few years. 

For a long time, the thought of her old friends filled her with a mix of nostalgia and dread. She had missed them, she loved them, but the idea of being around them carried too much weight, too many memories. The idea of them seeing her and trying to figure out if she was the same person she used to be chilled her to the bone. But all of that was gone now. She could look back and focus on the happy memories, and forget the part her parents and Jason Blossom’s death and Grundy and Jughead’s family problems played in their lives. She could remember sleepovers with Veronica, and coffee dates with Kevin, and helping Archie with his homework, and hanging out with Jughead for the Blue and Gold, running around and playing detective. She could remember the times before everything went crazy, too. Before the summer after freshman year had changed everything. 

But looking back on those times now, unlike in high school, her memories of her strained childhood crush on Archie were faded and grey, and mostly she remembered all the time she spent with Jughead. Watching movies at the Twilight before he worked there, and hiding out in the projection room with him after he did. Swapping book recommendations. Being incredibly grossed out the first time he convinced her to dip fries in a milkshake, but then it was the best idea anyone had ever had. 

Having finished her breakfast, Betty forced herself to stop her endless reflection and go get dressed. The seasons were slowly beginning their shift from summer to autumn, and she knew both that she chilled easily and she would be out most of the day, so she made sure to wear tights and a sweater over the simple pink dress she’d pulled on. That had been something else that took her time to work through, after she left home. When she moved in with Polly, Betty had essentially stripped all the soft colors out of her wardrobe, as if that would purge her mother’s influence from her life. But slowly, over time, she’d caught herself looking wistfully at baby pink and pastel blue dresses in shop windows. Maybe she’d spent so much time wearing them because her mother made her, but somehow a genuine affection for pastels, especially pink, had formed. And so Betty decided refusing to wear them gave her mother undue influence she didn’t deserve, and started wearing pink and pastels again, but her outfits usually had darker accents. A deep burgundy or navy or black cardigan, deep wine red shoes, red or plum lipsticks. It was all part of the slow process of deciding, of creating, who the hell she was going to be. 

At 9:58am, Betty picked up her phone on the way out to her car in the complex garage to shoot Jughead a text. 

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

Heading out!

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

someone’s eager. 

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

i’m about to leave too. be safe, betts. 

Grinning to herself, Betty slid into her car, started her preferred driving playlist, and hit the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i bet you thought the meet up was going to happen this chapter, huh? :P
> 
> ps i picked that backstage pic of lili and cole to use for this chapter because it 100% looks like a million photos i have of my friends from high school, haha


	5. your love is like a soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty arrived at the cafe early. This was not surprising. She’d given herself extra time to get there, there hadn’t been traffic, and she had always been one of those people who felt being give minutes early meant you were five minutes late.
> 
> What was surprising was when only a few minutes after she sat down with a mocha in a heavy blue mug and a croissant, the cafe’s door jingled again, and Jughead walked through it.

Betty arrived at the cafe early. This was not surprising. She’d given herself extra time to get there, there hadn’t been traffic, and she had always been one of those people who felt being give minutes early meant you were five minutes late.

What was surprising was when only a few minutes after she sat down with a mocha in a heavy blue mug and a croissant, the cafe’s door jingled again, and Jughead walked through it. 

Betty’s heart plunges into her stomach, because he looks the same. He looks the same, but lighter. And she knows that feeling, and all at once she wants to know everything. She wants to know every little thing he’s done since he put Riverdale in the rearview mirror, and she wants to know it now. She wants it to feel like they never lost touch, never pushed each other away for fear of remembering too much. 

He’s still wearing the old grey beanie. His hair is a little longer, swooping into his eyes from under the folded brim, but still dark and thick and wavy. He was wearing a dark blue knit sweater, with his old signature flannel-and-suspenders- hanging from his hips. His jeans were less worn than they’d ever been in high school though, and he wore a pair of black converse in lieu of heavy boots. He glances around the room and his eyes find her and he stares. He’s staring at her. Betty can’t bring herself to say anything, she just looks back at him and nervously bites her lip, an old habit she’d mostly worked out of. 

Jughead puts a hand to his head, ruffling the hair beneath his beanie self consciously, and smiles at her. That soft, sideways look, where his mouth just barely bent upwards and his eyes went off one direction and everything about him looked a little less tense. The way he would smile at her when they worked late at the Blue and Gold, when she brought him sweets just because, when she laughed at his jokes or was the only one of the group to understand his weird references. That smile was _her_ smile. All thoughts she had about playing it calm and cool fly out of her head, and she flies out of her chair to wrap him in a hug. 

After a moment of surprise, she feels him return the embrace, resting his chin on her hair and squeezing her lightly. 

::::

He’s so screwed. Jughead Jones is so comically goddamn screwed. 

Betty Cooper is hugging him. Her hair smells the same as it did when they were 15 and he finds himself wondering if she uses the same shampoo, all these years later, or if the smell is just her. Seeing her, sitting with a cup of coffee at that cafe table, had felt like being punched in the stomach, but it was nothing compared to how it felt for her to touch him again when she launched herself at him seconds later and caught him in a tight hug. 

“Hey.” he manages finally, when she starts to pull back. His voice cracks, just a little, and he remembers a different day, years before, when he’d slipped through her window and almost kissed her. Almost, but didn’t. Couldn't. 

“Hi.” her eyes are lit up and sparkling and her voice is soft and she’s grinning at him and he is so very, very screwed. People in the cafe are absolutely staring at them, because they’re just standing there, his hands on Betty’s waist, her hands on his shoulders, but he honestly could not care less because she’s there and it’s like the past five years never happened. 

::::

“I can’t believe how long it’s been.” Betty says as they both sit down. 

“I know. Five years.” Jughead scratches the back of his neck, and waves down a waiter to order a black coffee and a slice of chocolate cream pie. 

“It’s my fault. Sorry.” Betty smiles sadly and shrugs, breaking off a corner of her croissant. 

“We’re both at fault, Betts. We both could have tried harder to stay in touch. But we both had a lot of shit we wanted to forget.” he shrugs, and reaches over to steal a piece of croissant. 

“Yeah, I know. But I shouldn’t have tried to forget my friends too. Especially you.”

“We all fell apart. Not just you, or me. We drifted. It’s the way of the universe. Entropy.” 

“Here,” Betty says after a pause, pushing the tin she pulled out of her bag towards Jughead. “For old times sake.” she offers him a soft smile as he pulls the top off the tin of cookies and grins. 

“I was hoping you’d bring me some of these, since you made them for a video.” 

“They were your favorite, after all.” 

Jughead grins again, and takes a bite of one of the sandwich cookies, smearing marshmallow fluff onto his face. Before he can say anything or wipe it off, Betty snags her phone off the table and snaps a photo of him, grinning. 

“Don’t steal my soul, Cooper.” he says with a smirk. 

“Nah, just your cool reputation.” She stuck the tip of her tongue out, and Jughead snorted. 

“Don’t you remember, Betty? I’m a weirdo.” He grinned at her, crooked and warm, and her heart jumps just a little. “Oh, speaking of which. Do you mind if I take some pictures and footage of you today? For a project I’m working on for a class, and for my channel?”

“Sure!” she smiles, eating another piece of croissant. “What’s the project?”

“Weirdly relevant. Funny how art does that.” he raises his eyebrows, smirking, and it reminds her of all their afternoons in the Blue and Gold office, staring at the murder board, or hunched over notes and laptops. “It’s supposed to be a project visually exploring how the past is part of the present, whatever that means to us individually. Since right after we were given this project, a certain Hitchcock blonde sent me an email, I decided to focus on the idea you never really leave home behind. It follows you in unexpected ways.”

“That sounds lovely!” Betty grins, stirring the dregs of her coffee. 

“I’m planning on getting some footage of Arch and Ronnie too, and JB. I’m actually thinking of even taking a pilgrimage back home to Riverdale to get some shots there. The treehouse, if it’s still around, the trailer park, Riverdale High.” Jughead’s face is light, and he clearly loves talking about his work. It makes Betty feel warm, to see him engaged, and happy. This is the future she’d wanted from him, back when she’d hoped him leaving to live with JB and their mom was the best thing for him. This was the future he deserved. She’s distracted, thinking about how glad she is for him, and his next question almost completely flies over her head. 

“You should come with me, next weekend.” he says, voice full of faux calm, as he takes a sip of coffee. 

“Huh?” Betty snaps back into the present and furrows her eyebrows at him. 

“To Riverdale.” he clarifies. “Come with me.” 

Betty thinks about it. She thinks about going back there, back to the place where everything changed, the place she ran away from. The idea usually makes her blood run cold. But then she thinks about making the trip with Jughead. Thinks about how nice it would be to sit in Pop’s with him again, or walk along the river and try to make new memories to replace the visions of a dead body floating beneath the water. Thinks about the two of them crawling into the old treehouse, just for old time’s sake. 

“Yeah,” she says, smiling and nodding in spite of herself. “Yeah, okay. Next weekend.” 

And he gives her that smile again, _her_ smile, the one where he looks shyly off to the side and his face goes soft, and Betty is absolutely sure she made the right decision. 

The rest of the afternoon passes slowly, eventually leaving the coffeeshop they take a walk downtown, stop for sandwiches for lunch, and catch up on all the things they’ve missed in their years apart. When they eventually decide they need to leave, head back to their respective cities, it’s with Betty’s address typed into Jughead’s phone, and a promise to pick her up next Friday at nine am.


	6. i've been putting out fires all my life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s… weird.” Betty says carefully to her therapist a few days later. She’s perched on the edge of the sofa, knees together and ankles crossed, rolling a pink stress ball between her palms as she talks. Tabitha, her therapist, tugs on an earring and looks at Betty thoughtfully.

“It’s… weird.” Betty says carefully to her therapist a few days later. She’s perched on the edge of the sofa, knees together and ankles crossed, rolling a pink stress ball between her palms as she talks. Tabitha, her therapist, tugs on an earring and looks at Betty thoughtfully. 

“Weird how? That’s a very vague way to express your feelings.” 

“What I mean, I think, is that I was always really afraid to reconnect with anyone from my past. I’ve talked about that before. I always missed them, but I was afraid if I reached out to any of them, it would be like all this old stuff just hitting me in the face.” Betty frowned, still squeezing and rolling the stress ball. 

“And has then been your reaction the past week or so?”

“Not really. Which is what’s weird, and surprising. I guess in a way it’s been good to have the pleasant parts of my past back? And to remember that Riverdale wasn’t always all bad. Good things and good people happened there too.”

“What are some of the good things you’ve been reminded of?”

“Well, the first person I got back in touch with was my friend Jughead. We lost touch after he moved, and then I moved, and I started spiralling and just sort of ignoring everyone. I always felt really bad about that, worse than cutting out Archie or Kevin or even Ronnie. It always felt more like a betrayal than the others, I guess.”

“And why is that, do you think?”

“Jug was my best friend. I think most people we went to school and grew up with probably thought of both of us as Archie’s friend first and each other’s friends second, and we both definitely considered Archie one of our best friends, I mean, Jughead basically considered him a brother and I had a crush on him for literal years, but especially looking back it’s obvious Jug and I were a different kind of close. 

“His friendship was like… my outlet for all the weird things about me that didn’t fit into my family’s image of who I should be. Even the people I was friends with, who cared about me, had this idea of who I was, you know? Even Archie and Ronnie, who loved me to pieces and wanted the best for me. But Jug never expected me to be anything. I was more myself with him, because I knew he wouldn’t look at me cross eyed for complaining about Ernest Hemingway for ten minutes. He never expected me to be perfect, I guess that’s what it was.” Betty wrinkled her nose, shrugging. Even after multiple years of therapy, she still had trouble with the vulnerability it required. Sure, she told personal stories about her life on the internet for fun. But it was Tabitha’s literal job to listen to her and evaluate her mental state. It was different. 

“Jughead was the friend you met up with for coffee, right?” Tabitha asked. Betty nodded. “Is that why you chose to meet up with him, before any of your other old friends?”

“Actually, it was his idea. Right after we started talking again he asked if I wanted to meet halfway between both our schools. And when we did meet up, we were so busy just chatting I completely forgot I wanted to talk to him about his book. And get him to sign it. I’m going to visit him again next weekend, actually. I’m helping him with a film project, so we’re going back to our old hometown.”

“You’ll be back in Riverdale?” Tabitha raised an eyebrow “How are you feeling about that?”

“Scared.” Betty answered frankly, shrugging. “But I think it’s time for me to go back, and deal with it. And if I’m going to do it, I’m glad it’s Jughead who’s coming with. He has just as shitty and complicated a relationship with Riverdale as I do. He understands.”

“Your other friends wouldn’t?”

“They would but… there’d be more nostalgia there, I think? Like, Archie and Ron never lost contact, even after they broke up. Archie still thinks of it as his idyllic hometown where a handful of shitty things happened once, and Veronica thinks of it as the place she restarted her life, for the better.”

“I’m proud of you, Betty.” Tabitha said warmly. “I think finally looking back at where you came from with some distance and a clear head and someone to lean on is going to be very good for you, ultimately, even if it’s difficult.”

“I think so too.” 

“Unfortunately, it’s about that time, so we’ll have to part ways. Is our next appointment still at a good time for you?”

“Yes, it still works.” Betty nods, standing from the sofa and placing the stress ball into her coat pocket. 

“Good. See you in two weeks. Have a good day.”

“You too. Thanks, Tabitha.” 

Walking out of the building her therapist’s office was in, Betty let out a heavy breath. She liked therapy, but it had always made her kind of jumpy. She’d never been able to just have a session then go home and relax or even go home and work. She always ended up wandering aimlessly around some store for awhile, trying to orient herself in reality once more, before going back to her day to day business. Today, she was feeling in particular need of a good wander, so she decided to head to Destiny USA, a huge mall not too far from her college campus. They had a Johnny Rocket’s there, and the old timey vibe reminded her of the only thing she really missed about Riverdale: Pop’s. While she waits for her food, sipping at a strawberry milkshake, she pulls out her phone.

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

We’re going to Pop’s when we go to Riverdale, right?

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

of course we are. what did you think i’d been body swapped somehow?

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

I just wanted to make sure! Calm down. :P

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

please, betts. as if pop’s isn’t half the reason i’m willing to step foot in that hell hole of a town again. 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Hey, it wasn’t all bad!

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

okay, true. 

From: Jughead  
To: 315-555-4932

you were there, i guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!!! sorry this took forever, life is busy and i was sick and just. yes. but here's this! a thing! also im changing all the chapter titles/how i title them so. look out for that i guess!


	7. don't wanna get burned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was hard to tell, with Jughead. But there were little things, things she’d seen then and things she could look back on now and say ‘There. Right there. That was something.’
> 
> Like Jason Blossom’s funeral, and the way he smiled _her_ smile when she told him he looked nice. The way she was always the only person he’d share food with. The way he was always reaching out to grasp her shoulder when she was upset. The way they’d held each other the night before he left Riverdale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new chapter! i hate dialogue tags when talking on the phone in fics, why am i writing a distance au! lots of flirting and veronica in this chapter, hope y'all enjoy!

_”you were there, i guess.”_

Back at home, Betty reads the words over again and again, and flops back against the pillows on her sofa. It wasn’t rational, she told herself. There was no way. Having a crush on someone she hadn’t seen in literal years was well and truly absurd, even if there had been something between them, back then. Which she was pretty sure there had been. Maybe. It was hard to tell, with Jughead. But there were little things, things she’d seen then and things she could look back on now and say ‘There. Right there. That was something.’

Like Jason Blossom’s funeral, and the way he smiled _her_ smile when she told him he looked nice. The way she was always the only person he’d share food with. The way he was always reaching out to grasp her shoulder when she was upset. The way they’d held each other the night before he left Riverdale. 

Then there was the day she thought he might have wanted to kiss her. The day he’d climbed into her room through the window, like a scene from a 80’s movie, and comforted her. He’d gripped her shoulder and spoken softly to her about how she wasn’t her parents, or her family, and those words meant the world coming from Jughead, who had his own struggles with the place he came from. Then he’d started to say something, and his voice cracked, and he was looking at her. Just looking at her. And his face had been so quiet and soft and his hand had still been on her shoulder, and he’d glanced down at her lips, and she really thought he might kiss her. She would have let him. She would have kissed back. 

Betty wondered what would have happened, sometimes. If Jughead had reached forward and kissed her. Would he still have left? If he had, would they have stayed together? Made more of an effort to stay in touch? Or would they have still fallen apart, but then when they found each other again, they would feel too awkward to reach out?

She stared at her phone again, sighing loudly and audibly into the empty room. 

_”you were there, i guess.”_

When she’d hugged him in that coffee shop, and then when he’d hugged her back, it was the closest Betty had felt to something like ‘coming home’ in years. She’d always loved Jughead’s hugs, because he didn’t give them very often, so when he hugged her it felt special. She felt special. He was warm and tall and solid, and his flannel shirts were always soft and worn in the best way, and Betty would be lying if she said she never fantasized about walking through the halls wearing one of his flannels, or his denim jacket, over her clothes. She was simple, when it came to things like that. Maybe it was naive, or old fashioned, but it was true. She liked the idea of wearing a partner’s jacket, or t-shirt, and having some tangible memento, some reminder that someone cared for her. 

A memory floated to the surface of Betty’s mind, and she giggled. One time, their freshman year of high school, Cheryl had put something truly awful in Betty’s hair. Betty had been in tears over the embarrassment, trying to comb her hair in such a way that it covered up the sticky mess of jello and whipped cream. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Jughead had appeared. He’d taken a paper towel, and without even saying anything, wiped the worst of the gunk from her blonde curls. He’d then wrapped them in another towel, and then tugged his beanie off before pulling it down over her own. 

“Good as new.” he’d said, giving her that sideways smile that made something inside her melt a little bit. 

“Thanks, Juggie.” she’d replied, offering him a watery smile. He’d bumped her shoulder with his and put his arm around. 

“Cheryl’s just mad because people like you more, Betts.” 

She’d worn his beanie for the rest of the day, and every time someone’s eyes lingered on it, she felt a little secret thrill run through her. Jughead may have been an outcast, socially speaking, but Riverdale was a small town, and everyone knew that he never, ever took that beanie off. And here was Betty Cooper, Riverdale High’s resident goody two shoes, wearing it on her own head and walking the halls. 

Resisting the urge to read Jughead’s text yet again, she pulled up her contacts and hit dial. 

“B!!!” Veronica said, loudly and excitedly, after the phone rang exactly once. Betty laughed. 

“Hey Ronnie.” she said with a smile, switching her phone to speaker so she didn’t have to bother with her hands. 

“What’s up?”

“I have a confession to make.” Betty said as she pulled her planner from the side table and into her lap, opening it to next week. 

“Oooh, do tell.” Veronica’s voice was playful, and Betty rolled her eyes. 

“So, back in high school, I had a crush on Jughead.”

“That is the exact opposite of news, Betty Cooper. Literally everyone knew. Except Jughead, because he would never ever think to believe you of all people would have feelings for him. Well, and Archie, but Archie was and remains a truly oblivious idiot.”

“I wasn’t done, V!” Betty replied with a laugh. “That’s true about Archie though. He could have walked in on me making out with Jughead and asked the next day what we were doing. He means well, but, wow.”

“The poor thing was not made for observation.” Veronica chuckled on the other end of the line “Now, finish your confession.” 

“I think I still have feelings for him. But that’s like, totally ridiculous right? I’ve seen him in person once in the past five years, and before a few weeks ago we hadn’t spoken in ages.” Betty frowned as she spoke, and scribbled notes in the ‘Therapy’ segment of her weekly spread. 

“For normal people, sure, I guess.” Veronica said, and Betty could hear the shrug in her voice. “But we all experienced some pretty intense stuff together, back in high school. I think that creates a different kind of bond.”

“That’s true.” 

“I know, B. I’m always right. It’s one of my finer attributes.” 

“We were texting earlier—”

“Of course you were.”

“Shut up. Anyway, we were talking about our trip to Riverdale on Friday, and I told him there had to be something about it he remembered fondly. And he said “you were there, i guess” and I feel like I’m 13, overthinking a note from Archie in advisory all over again. 

“We’re all always 13 overthinking notes from our crush, B. I think you should go for it.”

“Okay, V, whatever you say.” Betty replied, giggling. “But seriously, even if I still have feelings for him, that doesn’t mean he still has, or ever had, feelings for me. Jughead’s been screwed over a lot, I don’t want to add to that.” 

“Oh please, Betty, Jughead Jones absolutely had a thing for you in high school and, I would wager, probably even before that. And if anyone we know would be a ‘one and done’ type of guy when it comes to feelings, it would be him. You’re right. He’s been burned. And he’s a sensitive guy.”

“Okay, okay, I know. I actually thought there was a time, back in school, when he was going to kiss me. But he didn’t. Anyway, so what if I like him and he may or may not like me? I don’t know if I’m healthy enough to be in a relationship with someone. I don’t know if he wants to be in a relationship period!”

“So flirt a little. Be a person, Betty.”

“Do I even know how to flirt?”

“Don’t pull that with me, Miss ‘Oh, Juggie, could you come give me a hand, I can’t reach this library book’. You can flirt. Just be yourself.”

“Thanks, V.” Betty smiled gratefully, even though Veronica couldn’t see her.” 

“That’s what friends are for. Now go, text our resident Mr. Darcy and sweep him off his feet.”

“Bye, Ronnie.”

“Bye, B.” Veronica said warmly, before Betty heard a tap on the other end of the line and the call ended. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Betty pulled the messaging thread with Jughead up once more and typed a response, sending it quickly before she could overthink it. 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Aw, Juggie, I missed our Pop’s dates too. :P 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: Jughead

Maybe we can share a shake, for old time’s sake.


	8. bonfire sparks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jughead flexed his hands once, twice, three times as he watched the process bar on his latest video. He needed to make it, and post it, because he valued honesty and personal integrity as a journalist and writer, but that didn’t make it any less nerve wracking.

Jughead flexed his hands once, twice, three times as he watched the process bar on his latest video. He needed to make it, and post it, because he valued honesty and personal integrity as a journalist and writer, but that didn’t make it any less nerve wracking. This was not the usual kind of video Jughead posted. He did not make casual personal vlogs talking about his personal business. But something about this felt important. And yes, some of his desire to post it likely had to do with the return of Betty Cooper to his life. 

Before he published the video, he plugged in his headphones to listen through and make sure the file wasn’t corrupted during upload. 

“So, this is a different sort of video than I usually post, but I’m always talking about how much I value personal honesty and integrity, so I figured I should also walk the walk. Recently, some old friends came back into my life. I’ve been thinking a lot about the person I was in high school, and the person I am now, and there’s something I’ve never truly put into words before, not to anybody, even my closest friends. 

“I’m demisexual. Some of you probably know this word already, and a lot of you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Basically, demisexuality is on the asexuality spectrum. When I was in middle school and high school and my friends, especially my best friend Archie, no offense buddy, were going through their girl crazy phases, I could never understand what all the fuss was about. It was just one more thing that made me feel weird, and different, and out of place. All these guys I go to school with are hopping from crush to crush and girlfriend to girlfriend and there I was, the weird dude in the beanie, with the same mild crush I’d had since forever. And I’m not judging those guys for their actions. I just didn’t, and still don’t, get it. 

“I’ve never seen a person on the street and felt compelled to hit on them, or angle for a one night stand. If I don’t know someone really, really well, if I don’t already have this strong and established bond with them, the idea of being ‘sexually attracted’ to them never even occurs to me. And that’s what being demisexual is, really. It’s not experiencing sexual attraction to people unless you have an emotional connection with them already.

“The same kind of goes for romantic feelings, honestly, but I hesitate to call that demiromanticism or greyromantic or on the aromantic spectrum, because that could all very well be my abandonment and trust issues from my family more than any kind of orientation. Love and sex and feelings are endlessly complicated, and they’re something that deserve a lot of thought. I know some people take issue with the increasingly specific labels our society invents, but as someone who spent years feeling out of place, or even broken, I speak to the fact that, when you want them, labels can be helpful.

“Anyway, this was a lot of talking about my feelings, so I think I’m good on that for the next year. Hopefully you guys won’t bail on me, I promise I’ll be back to discussing unsolved crimes this time next week. This is Jones, signing off.”

The export was flawless, so there was no reason not to post it. Jughead titled it “A Frank Discussion” and typed up a quick description before hitting post and immediately dropping his head into his hands. 

Jughead hadn’t really actively thought about his sexuality in years. There’d been someone in Cleveland he thought he might have had a passing, month or so crush on, and one time there was this series of weird emotions he felt about a guy from his lit class who reminded of Archie that he was deeply unsure how to qualify, but there had only really been one time he was sure there was someone he wanted to be with. But when they’d fallen out of touch, all hope of that ever happening had fallen away, and Jughead had been more than content to ignore the entire concept of dating and sex in order to focus on school and writing. 

But then Betty Cooper had stumbled back into his life. And rationally he knew having feelings for someone he’d had a crush on as a child and a teenager but hadn’t seen in years was pretty nuts, he couldn’t help it. 

He didn’t know how long he sat there, hands pressed to his eyes, head bent down, but it had to have been awhile. After a long stretch of silence, his phone buzzed with a notification. Probably a video comment. He braced himself for whatever bullshit was to come, but when he pulled up his activity on youtube, there was only one comment so far. 

_betonbetty said:_   
_ <3!!!_

Jughead grinned. Picking up his phone, he typed out a quick message.

From: 518-555-1678  
To: Betts

betts, when you’re the first comment on a youtube video it’s supposed to be ‘first!11!’

From: 518-555-1678  
To: Betts

but in all seriousness, thanks. 

From: Betts  
To: 518-555-1678

You were so eloquent and well spoken about it!  
Also: :P

From: Betts  
To: 518-555-1678

Would it be patronising to say I’m proud of you?

From: 518-555-1678  
To: Betts

coming from you? nah.

From: Betts  
To: 518-555-1678

I’m sorry if I ever wasn’t there for you, back in school. I know I was pretty crush happy sometimes too. 

From: 518-555-1678  
To: Betts

betty, if anyone was genuinely consistently there for me, it was you. 

From: 518-555-1678  
To: Betts

your fleeting affections were never as fleeting or as all consuming as archie’s.

From: Betts  
To: 518-555-1678

Haha. Yeah, I love Archie, but he was kind of a mess about girls in high school. 

From: Betts  
To: 518-555-1678

Is he still like that?

From: 518-555-1678  
To: Betts

he’s grown up a little. 

From: Betts  
To: 518-555-1678

Also!! Spill, Juggie. Who was this longtime crush of yours in high school??

From: 518-555-1678  
To: Betts

now that is a secret i’ll take to my grave. 

From: 518-555-1678  
To: Betts

maybe. ;)

From: Betts  
To: 518-555-1678

So what I’m getting from that is I can bribe the information out of you with milkshakes. 

From: 518-555-1678  
To: Betts

betts, you could bribe anything out of me with milkshakes.

Finally feeling somewhat embarrassed and putting his phone down, Jughead decided to take a shower. Could Betty tell he was trying to flirt? Did he even know how to flirt? Was any of this even a remotely good idea? Maybe he should talk to Archie about all this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and another chapter!!! i love.... demisexual jughead. i very much view betty and jug as people who wouldn't have a lot of serious relationships in life, especially with all their respective traumas.


	9. this is our turn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minutes after he considered contacting Archie to talk about Betty, Jughead realized this was a comically terrible idea. He loved his friend, he really did. Archie was a good guy, all things considered, but advice was not the man’s strong suit, especially where other people’s girl problems were involved. While he dreaded the potential meddling his next actions could cause, he knew the best person to ask, and he knew what he had to do. 
> 
> He called Veronica Lodge.

Minutes after he considered contacting Archie to talk about Betty, Jughead realized this was a comically terrible idea. He loved his friend, he really did. Archie was a good guy, all things considered, but advice was not the man’s strong suit, especially where other people’s girl problems were involved. While he dreaded the potential meddling his next actions could cause, he knew the best person to ask, and he knew what he had to do. 

He called Veronica Lodge. 

“Did someone die?” she said dryly as she answered the phone. 

“Very funny, Ron.” 

“No, seriously, did the world end? Is Wes Craven back from the dead?” Veronica wheedled further, and Jughead rolled his eyes while he dreaded what he had to say next. 

“I want your advice. About a girl.” Jughead is positive the face he’s making is audible in his voice. 

“So you want my advice about Betty.”

“Couldn’t you have at least let me pretend you didn’t know?”

“You’re a one woman man, Jones. That’s not my fault.”

“I think ‘harboring a crush on the same person from the age of ten to the age twenty one takes the concept of a one woman man to a very different place, Veronica.” 

“I think it’s romantic.” Veronica said, her voice almost defensive, and Jughead smiled, imagining the way she must have been crossing her arms and arching one eyebrow defiantly. 

“Some might say creepy.” he offered, which was the true root of his concern. 

“Sure, I guess, but it’s not like you’ve spent all those years since high school building a shrine to her in your closet or stalking her and threatening anyone she dated. You’ve spent those years living your life and dealing with the shit high school threw at all of us. The fact that you’ve loved Betty for all of them is just the background radiation.” 

“Your dad is basically The Godfather and yet, somehow, I think you may be the sanest of all of us, Ronnie.” 

“Yes well, Daddy’s dirty money pays for a very high end psychotherapist.” he can practically hear her roll her eyes. “But seriously. You aren’t creepy, Jughead. She was your best friend. You two had something special, back then. We all saw it.”

“So you don’t think I’ve completely lost it?”

“Oh, my darling Holden, I always think you’ve completely lost it. But that doesn’t mean this particular endeavor is off the rails, as you might say.” 

“How have you not grown out of calling me Holden Caulfield? That kid is the worst.” 

“I actually just think annoying you is funny.” 

“Gee, thanks Ronnie.” he rolled his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time during their short conversation. “But actually, thank you.”

“Any time, Jughead. Ta ta now though, I have a meeting.” 

“Bye Ron.” 

Sighing heavily, Jughead dropped his phone onto the couch. Time to finally take that shower. He had thinking to do. 

:::

Betty was sprawled out on her bed with her planner, a playlist of quiet instrumentals playing on low from her phone, settled beside her on the pillows. There were only three days between now and the trip to Riverdale, and she was unspeakably nervous. Nervous about going back to that town, nervous about Jughead, nervous about how she would react to seeing places she’d avoided for years. A part of her itched to drive her nails into her palms, open up the old scars, give herself something to focus on. But she shook her head, clearing her own thoughts. That wasn’t how she handled things now. Instead, she picked up her favorite light purple fine liner pen and flipped her planner to one of her pages that was premade for moments exactly like this. 

One of the biggest things she’d been working on for all her years in therapy was a consistently useful way to remind herself many of her thoughts were irrational. She’d tried a lot of things over the years, but nothing worked quite as well as the worksheet formats her therapist gave her based in cognitive behavioral therapy. The columns and straightforward instructions of CBT made perfect sense to Betty, especially when she was in a panic. Column A was the cause, column B was the thought, then C was the effect it had on her, and D was a counterstatement. It forced her to slow down and parse out her thoughts and fears one by one, until she could feel calm wash over her once again. It had saved her from any number of emergency lorazepam doses. 

Betty wrote until all the column space on that page was filled, working her way through her anxieties. Her feelings about Jughead, her feelings about Riverdale, her concerns over her mental state. When she was finally done, her wrist ached and her shoulders were tense, but she felt better. She flexed her hands, proud to not feel the sting of new wounds. Feeling much calmer, she flipped back to her to do list. There were two items left for today. She needed to film this week’s baking video, and perform one act of self care. 

Meringues would be good this week, she thought to herself, and headed for the kitchen to set the eggs out. They’d whip up better at room temperature. Once the eggs were on the counter and a recipe card was set out, she decided to take a long, hot bath while the eggs sat. A good hour of hot water and pampering sounded exactly like the solution for the last of her stress. So she grabbed a towel, some candles, and her electric kettle, and headed for the bathroom. 

Once Betty was settled into the bathtub, she gently set her phone on the edge and hit dial, switching it to speaker. It rang a few times before the person on the other end answered.

“Holy shit, it’s Betty Cooper.” Kevin said, playfully shocked. 

“Oh shut up. We’ve been talking.” Betty rolled her eyes, and took a slow sip of hot tea. 

“No, we’ve been texting. This is talking.” he teased. 

“College has made you deeply annoying, Kev.” 

“So what’s up, B?”

“I’m going to Riverdale on Friday. With Jughead.” 

“Yeah, I’m going to need a lot more info on both of those statments, ASAP.”

“Well, you know we met up for coffee recently. And while we were there, he was telling me about this project he’s working on for one of his film classes. He was planning on going to Riverdale, to get some footage, and he asked me to go with him. I said yes. So now we’re driving out there Friday morning.”

“Wow.” Kevin said after a long pause. 

“I have a question, about when we were in high school. Ron said something, and it’s not that I don’t believe her, but you would have known the involved parties longer and have a better sample size to pull from. When we were kids, in high school or before that, did Jughead have a crush on me?” Betty fidgeted with a blonde curl, staring at her polished toes peeking out of the steaming water. 

“Yes, absolutely. Was that a secret?” 

“Yes? No? Kevin, I’m having a crisis.” 

“Why, because you still have feelings for the same brooding boy you fell in love with in high school? Join the club, B. Riverdale fucked us all, and none of us ever really grew out of it. We got better at dealing with it, we cut out shitty people, we went to therapy. But it doesn’t fix everything. My first love was a gang banger who turned out to be spying on us but then actually started to like me, and I’m still not completely over it. V and Archie are playing the same cat and mouse game they’ve been playing since the day they met. You love Jughead, Jughead loves you. None of these situations are ideal, but none of us are hurting anyone and we’re all doing the best we can.” 

“You’ve gotten very wise, Kev.” Betty said quietly, her voice grateful. 

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about all this stuff. So have you. It’s natural that we form our own complex opinions. Plus, I am a psych major, B.” Kevin’s voice is playful, and Betty smiles. 

“I’m so glad I stopped being so scared and let myself reach out to you guys.”

“To be fair, we all could have tried harder, not just you. I don’t think we were ready to face each other yet. But I’m glad you’re back, Betty.”

“Me too, Kev. And if you ever need me to talk _you_ through a crisis, just call.” 

“Oh I will, don’t worry.” 

After she and Kevin hung up, Betty let her head slump back against her bath pillow and shut her eyes, focusing on the slight movements of the water around her and its warmth on her skin. 

“You can do this,” she said to herself, quietly. “You deserve this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay in some ways this chapter, especially betty's half, feels like a weird tonal departure, but it was really important to me to be very straightforward and frank about the issues betty struggles with and how they would affect this situation. hopefully it isnt TOO jarring


	10. days like these

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day of reckoning had come. Betty chuckled to herself, as the thought occurred to her. It sounded like something Jughead would say. It was Friday morning, and they were headed to Riverdale today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a new chapter!! i swear i'm not dead guys. or abandoning this fic. or the past dictates the future, i have an update coming for that asap! i was just swamped at work and got sick again and you know, just, life happened. hope y'all like it!

The day of reckoning had come. Betty chuckled to herself, as the thought occurred to her. It sounded like something Jughead would say. It was Friday morning, and they were headed to Riverdale today. She surveyed her appearance, and took a long and steady breath. Her hands itched, not to meet the edges of her nails, but to pull her hair back into her once signature ponytail. She’d steered away from the hairstyle in recent years, choosing to wear her hair loose as a statement of her new level of confidence and self control. She wouldn’t give in now. She ran a brush through her hair and left it down. 

Keeping the various parts of the day in mind, Betty had dressed both for comfort and for aesthetic. She was sure visiting her hometown would be stressful, and there would be a lot of driving and walking. But she also wanted to look nice, especially if she was going to take Veronica’s advice and maybe try and flirt a little. She already had been, sort of, over text, but she figured her intent would be more obvious in person. She wore a pair of soft and light colored jeans, with a pair of brown oxfords, a dusty pink shirt made of shimmery fabric that fell off the edges of her shoulders, and a thin but long cream colored cardigan. Her hair was loose, and her makeup was light, all pinks and golds and subtle shimmers. She texted Veronica a mirror selfie for approval. 

To: 315-555-4932  
From: V

B!!! Oh my god, girl. 

From: 315-555-4932  
To: V

So you approve?

To: 315-555-4932  
From: V

You are, as always, a smoke show, Betty Cooper. 

To: 315-555-4932  
From: V

Go get ‘im. ;)

Just then, there’s a knock on Betty’s apartment door, and she jumps about a foot in the air.

“Coming!” she shouted, pushing her phone into her cardigan pocket. A moment of panic flared in Betty’s chest as she glanced around and saw her open purse, but not her small ‘go bag’ she kept in it’s largest inner pocket. She couldn’t go anywhere without it, let alone somewhere as stressful as Riverdale. Her ‘go bag’ was a makeup bag she carried everywhere with her. It contained a few doses of her anxiety medication, a tube of triple antibiotic, bandaids and gauze, her pink latex stress ball, a pair of gloves, and a scrap of soft fabric about the size of her hand. It was, in essence, a tool kit for handling her anxiety, should it rear its head. Then she spotted the bag from the corner of her eye, resting on the bathroom counter, next to her actual makeup bag. She breathed a sigh of relief, and snagged it, putting it in her purse. 

“Hey.” she said a few moments later, swinging open the door for Jughead, slightly breathless. 

“Hi Betts.” he smiled at her, and something in her chest melted. 

“Come in and sit down for a second, I’m almost ready.” 

Betty waved him into the room and then swung back to her bedroom, looking around. She was mostly ready, but she was feeling slightly keyed up and wanted to do a thorough check of her to do list before she took off. 

::::::

Jughead stepped through Betty’s door, and glanced around her apartment. It was, as he would have assumed, immaculately clean. Clean as in dust and garbage free. There was a surprising amount of pleasant life clutter, and it made him smile. It was like a visual reminder how far she’d come, how far Betty had pulled away from her past and her controlling mother. Her coffee table catches his eye, as it’s stacked with books and notepads and pens. While Betty ducks into her bedroom, he heads for the couch, to take a closer look. 

Right at the top of the book pile, full of little blue sticky note flags, is his book, _Sin and Salvation at Sweetwater_. Half of him is pleased that she’d not only read it, but obviously taken the time to really pay attention and take notes. The other half of him is terrified, thinking back to writing certain passages about their characters and hoping to god she couldn’t read his horrible ancient crush between the lines. Oh, who was he kidding. Betty was smart, and she was also a writer. She would know immediately. But, he thought idly as he reflected on some of their recent talks, maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. 

He glanced at the rest of the books on the table and smiled. There was a collection of Anne Sexton poems, _Steering the Craft_ which was Ursula Le Guin’s book of writing tips, and a handful of memoirs by woman journalists. He picked the copy of his book up and smirked at Betty as she walked through the door, a bag slung over one shoulder. 

“Should I be worried my first and best fan is going to go all _Misery_ on me?” he waves the book, and Betty laughs. 

“I actually meant to bring that with me when we met for coffee. I wanted to talk to you about it. It’s amazing, by the way. I mean, of course it is. It’s you.” Betty flushes slightly when she says it, and Jughead bites back a grin. 

“Well, we’ve got a whole drive ahead of us. I would love to pick your brain about it. I assume all of these flags indicate commentary or critique?” he rifles through the pages, smiling at the sight of Betty’s neat writing in the margins of the pages. She took notes on his book. She liked his book. She wanted to talk about his book. It was all his high school dreams come true. Well, not all of them. But a fair few. 

“I want you to sign it too. Oh, which reminds me.” Betty walks over to him and snags the book, flipping to the very front and pointing at the dedications page. “Who is ‘you’ in this last bit?”

Jughead fights the urge to rub the back of his head nervously as he skims the dedication, like he’s reminding himself what he wrote. He doesn’t need to, of course. He remembers every word. 

_To all the friends who stood by me._  
 _Especially you. I couldn’t have done it without you._

“The reader?” Jughead says cheekily, trying to avoid the question. Betty rolls her eyes, and stares at him pointedly. “Fine, fine. You broke me down, Cooper. I was talking about you. As in you, Betty Cooper.”

“Really?” she smiles at him, soft and shy, and rubs the edges of the book page with her finger tips. The gentle expression on her face warms his heart, and he leans into her, playfully pushing her with his shoulder. 

“Yeah, Betts. Who else?”


	11. looking at you for a long, long time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before they know it, they’re on the road. Betty is driving so Jughead can film, so they take her car and leave Jughead’s in Betty’s parking space. It’s a nice day, so she puts the top down.

Before they know it, they’re on the road. Betty is driving so Jughead can film, so they take her car and leave Jughead’s in Betty’s parking space. It’s a nice day, so she puts the top down. 

“Still in cars then, I see?” Jug had smirked as he got in, and Betty had just rolled her eyes. 

Now they’re cruising down a rural New York highway, and Jughead has his camera out, and he’s watching Betty through the viewfinder and trying to decide if, when he edits this later, it should be in color or black and white. He’s using both palettes for the film project, and they’d both have their merits in this situation. There’s something so classic, so timeless Americana, about Betty in her dark sunglasses, wavy blonde hair moving in the wind, driving a convertible. The old fashioned effect black and white gives would look stunning. But there’s something about the colors too, the blue sky, the blue car, Betty’s blonde hair and pink cheeks dusted with freckles. 

He can’t decide what’s more honest, which color choice would come closer to getting at the truth of her. Black and white to indicate sadness is a cliche, but cliches are cliches for a reason. They provide ease of communication. But in removing the color from the shot, he’d lose the golden light shining on her hair, strands of gold woven by Rumplestiltskin himself. 

“Have you been back? Since you moved, I mean?” Betty asks, reaching over to turn the radio down so she can hear his answer over the wind.

“Not even once.” Jughead answers, holding the camera over his head for a down angled shot of the hood of the car. 

“Me either. I’ve driven by it a few times, thought about going in. But I’ve never actually managed to do it.” she sighs softly, hands tightening on her steering wheel. Jughead wonders if the scars are still there, pressed into her palms. He wonders if she’d let him film them. Maybe in a booth at Pop’s. He can see the shot in his mind’s eyes. Formica table top, Betty’s manicured nails dragging a fry through ketchup and stirring a milkshake, and then she would turn her hands over, and you would see the faded marks in her palms. He wasn’t sure he could ask that of her, though. He wasn’t sure he knew her well enough for that, unlike all the nights in his old treehouse where she would let him slip his hands in hers to keep her nails out of her tender skin. 

“I don’t think I would want to do this with anyone else.” Jughead says quietly. It won’t keep the camera from picking it up. He’ll have to decide later if he wants to leave the dialogue in or tune some music over it. 

“I feel the same way. I don’t even know if I could do this with any of our other friends.” Betty agrees, keeping to the left to stay in the right direction. 

“I always missed you the most.” Jughead says suddenly, bluntly. His face heats up afterwards, and he regrets it, but then Betty smiles. 

“Yeah. We were something special, weren’t we?” the expression on her face is soft, and once again Jughead feels that tiny surge of hope that maybe he isn’t being totally ridiculous. Or at least if he is, so is Betty. 

“Would you let me take some footage of your hands? At Pop’s? You don’t have to, if it makes you the least bit uncomfortable, but I thought—” 

“Yes. I trust you, Jug.” she says, before he can even finish rambling. She doesn’t see it, because she’s driving, but he beams at her. 

The project is starting to change and shift in Jughead’s mind’s eye. To be fair, it had probably started shifting back when he asked Betty to come with him to Riverdale. Even though Betty contacting him is what inspired his take on this assignment in the first place, it had been bending its way further towards her ever since. It only made sense. When Jughead thought of Riverdale, he thought of Betty. He thought of the school paper, and the tree house, and cupcakes and cookies on his birthday, and sneaking glances at Betty’s window when he hung out in Archie’s room. 

“I wonder if the old treehouse is there.” Jughead muses, swinging his camera around behind them. 

“Oh, I hope so. I’d love to see it. Do you remember us spending the night there, the night before you left?” Betty says, a wistful smile on her face. 

“Of course I do. You set an alarm for five am so we could spend the night together, but you could sneak back to your house and be in your own bed when your mom woke you up. You were always having to do stuff like that. Or just getting in trouble, like when my mom took JB and left.” Jughead’s voice is soft as he speaks, aiming the camera at Betty once more. 

“How are they doing by the way? JB and Gladys? Are you guys doing okay? We haven’t really talked about that since we got back in touch.” she asks, flipping on her turn signal to go around a slow semi. 

“They’re good. We’re good. I talk to JB all the time, and my mom sometimes. I don’t talk to my dad. Things with mom and I were rough, for a long time, after I moved back in. I was bitter and sad and scared. But I understand better now, what she did and why she did it. She had to get JB out, and I wouldn’t come with her. It was a hard decision, and maybe it wasn’t a fair one, but it’s what happened.” Jughead shrugs, and feels something brush against his shoulder as Betty pulls one hand from the wheel momentarily to squeeze his arm. “I haven’t talked to my dad in years. He was sick, I know that, and I understand but… I just spent too many years caring and being disappointed.” 

“You deserved a better family, Jug. You deserved a better father.” Betty’s voice is practically a whisper. 

“What about you?” Jughead asks, voice gentle. 

“I talk to Polly and the twins all the time, and actually sometimes Cheryl, since, you know. She’s technically family. But I haven’t spoken to my parents since my 18th birthday. My mother called me. Being who I am, I decided to answer, see what she had to say. Nothing she or my father said had been worth hearing or the emotional relapse it caused. I stopped answering their calls, and one day they stopped calling. Altogether I think I’ve spoken to them three times since I was officially emancipated.” Betty shrugs, and Jughead reaches over and squeezes her shoulder. They pass the rest of the drive in companionable silence while Jughead films. 

When they’ve nearly reached Riverdale, just barely outside the town, Jughead tells Betty to pull over. 

“Why?” she asks, even as she shifts gears and moves to pull onto the shoulder of the empty road. 

“I want to take a picture of you, before we go back into our hometown for the first time. Document the calm before the storm, as it were.” Jughead says, swapping his camera for his phone. The car stopped, he clambers out. “Stretch out, look comfy.” he says with a smile, stepping off to the side. 

Betty leans against the front bench seat, an easy expression on her face. Jughead snaps a picture of her and nods, posting it to instagram, converted to black and white, just like the rest of his feed. 

He captions it “heading into the belly of the beast”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo! sorry this took so long! next up is a new chap of 'the past dictates the future'! work has been busy and i had like, graduation and stuff, also i kept getting distracted by one shots. lemme know what you guys think!!! <3 much love


	12. loyal till you die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty drives them over the city limits, past the faded sign declaring Riverdale the ‘town with pep!’ and the world does not screech to a halt. 
> 
> “Welcome to hell.” Jughead says wryly, into the turned around lens of his camera. Betty snorts.

Betty drives them over the city limits, past the faded sign declaring Riverdale the ‘town with pep!’ and the world does not screech to a halt. 

“Welcome to hell.” Jughead says wryly, into the turned around lens of his camera. Betty snorts. 

They park Betty’s car on a random street, wanting to make their tour of town on foot. Betty pulls up the roof and locks her doors, carefully checking all of them. 

“I talked to my therapist about coming back here,” Betty says as they begin their walk. It feels surreal, to be walking the streets of Riverdale, side by side with Jughead Jones. To be back in this town, with him, not a terrified child but something resembling a fully formed person. “I was nervous. She said she thought it would be good for me though. To come back with a clear head and someone to lean on if it gets hard.” 

“You’re in therapy?” Jughead asks, voice curious but not judgemental. He fiddles with his camera settings, watching the light through the lens. 

“Yeah, for a few years now. For anxiety and trauma, and stuff.” Betty shrugs. “I talk about it some in older videos, I’m pretty open about it. I think it’s important.” 

“I was in therapy for awhile, and it definitely helped, but it also reached a point where it stopped helping. I book a session once in a blue moon though.” Jughead kicks a rock, and aims his camera at a row of suburban houses. Betty watches him as they walk, glancing at the houses, wondering if she still knows anyone who lives there. 

She’s changed so much since she left Riverdale. But how much has the town itself changed? Growing up there, it had felt like Riverdale existed in some weird bubble, where everyone knew everyone and nothing ever changed. Then Jason Blossom was found dead, and everything changed. For awhile, at least. 

“So, Betty Cooper.” Jughead says, voice light, aiming his camera at her once more. “Beatrice Betty Cooper.” 

“Oh really, Jug? This again? How old are we?” Betty said with a laugh. “For the thousandth time, Betty isn’t even a nickname for Beatrice!” 

“And Jughead is a nickname for Forsythe?” Jughead says with a laugh, raising an eyebrow at her from behind the camera. 

“Jughead isn’t a nickname for anything! You literally made it up when we were kids. Betty, however, is actually, literally, a nickname for a real name, specifically Elizabeth. You can’t just decide my name is Beatrice, Jug.” 

This was a joke going back into the earliest days of high school, when Jughead and Betty would jam themselves into a Pop’s booth and read ahead in their literature class readings. They’d both been so taken with A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream that they decided to craft their own little Shakespeare book club, and spent their weekends reading the plays out loud to each other. After reading Much Ado About Nothing over the summer, Jughead had decided Betty was really short for Beatrice, not Elizabeth, and called her by her ‘full name’ whenever he wanted to tease her. 

“Your mother gave you the wrong name, that’s not my fault!” Jughead was laughing, smirking at her over the viewfinder of the camera. Betty rolled her eyes again. 

“I still maintain that I was more like Hero than Beatrice. Young, naive, innocent, easily fooled and easily hurt…” she trails off, shrugging. 

“Please. Like you’d ever marry someone who pulled a Claudio on you. You’ve always been a Beatrice, Betty. A stubborn spitfire.” He smiles at her, looking smug, and Betty feels her face heat up with a blush. 

“And who are you then? A caustic bachelor with a heart of gold, like Benedick?” Betty smiles, and watches Jughead blush. 

“I’m obviously Hamlet, Betty. Dark and brooding, fucked up family, terrible life choices.” Jughead rolls his eyes, trying to brush off Betty’s seemingly obvious flirting. 

“Oh please, Forsythe, even you’re not that tragic.” Betty rolls her eyes “You might be more drama than comedy, but you’re hardly a full blown tragedy.” 

“A man can dream, Betts. A man can dream.” he says wryly, sighing dramatically. Betty snorts with laughter. 

“Honestly, I think I’m more of a Disney princess than a Shakespeare heroine.”

“Cinderella, kept under lock and key by her wicked stepmother until she meets prince charming?” Jughead looks skeptical, and Betty winks. 

“Nah, more like Rapunzel. Held hostage by a cruel and controlling mother, until a dashing rogue helps me make my escape.” Her smirk is positively glowing, and Jughead can feel his brain starting to shut down. 

“You hardly need a knight in shining armor, or a prince, or a dashing rogue to help you out, Betty. You got out of Riverdale, and away from your mother, all on your own.” Jughead says suddenly, his voice serious. Betty smiles at him, looking soft. 

“I know, Juggie. But it’s a nice thought, isn’t it? After all, the rogue was running away from something too. He doesn’t just help her. They help each other.” 

As their conversation trails off, they arrive at Pop’s. Betty stops, staring at the establishment that she hasn’t seen in so many years, and feels a strange blend of fear, excitement, and nostalgia. Jughead pauses, and she watches him alternate between taking photos and filming footage of the restaurant, and her standing in front of it. When he seems done, they both pause, staring at the door, almost afraid to see what will happen when they open it. 

The bell over the door jingles as Jughead pushes it open, and the smells and sounds and sights inside almost immediately plunge Betty back to the more pleasant parts of high school. She smiles. It’s hard, but she’s getting better at separating the good from the bad when she looks back on her time here in Riverdale. She’s finally reaching a point where she can pick things apart, focus on nights at Pop’s with her friends, and ignore the nights she spent crying alone in her room. 

“Do my eyes deceive me, or is that Jughead Jones and Betty Cooper?” A jovial voice calls from behind the counter. Betty and Jughead both look over and smile, seeing Pop Tate himself standing at the register. 

“Hey,” Jughead said, attempting to be casual.

“Hi Pop!” Betty said brightly, waving. 

“Looong time no see, kids. Good to see you around. Do you need menus, or do you guys still know what you want?” Pop leads them to a table, and Betty realizes it’s their old back booth, where they always used to work on homework, and smiles. 

“I think we know what we want, right Jug?” Betty grins, and Jughead nods, and they order the same old things they’d always order, back in high school. 

“Sometimes,” Jughead says a bit later, his mouth full of burger, “the classics are classic for a reason.” 

Betty laughs, taking a sip of her strawberry milkshake. 

“So about your hands,” Jughead says, seeming to have been reminded of his plan. 

“Tell me what to do, oh wise director.” Betty says with a smile. 

Jughead does just that, and the careful way he watches, films, and talks her through what to do makes her feel warm. He focuses the shot on her finger tips, her polished nails, as she pulls a french fry through ketchup. He pans up to her face, and she smiles shyly into the camera. He refocuses the camera again, this time on her hand, wrapped around the frosty glass of pink milkshake. Next, he instructs her to lay her hands flat on the table, clench her fists, and then turn them over so her palms are visible. 

Betty feels vulnerable, with her palms stretched out in front of Jughead’s camera. But she meant what she said in the car. She trusts him. If anyone can handle her relationship to her scars, to her hometown, with grace, it’s him. She takes a risk, and decides to talk a little. 

“I think about those nights a lot, you know.” she says, loud enough the camera will hear her, but just barely. “You were so kind. You’ve always been kind. We were just kids, but you still knew what to do to help me. You’re all the best parts of this town, Jug.” 

She looks up at him, and Jughead looks flushed. 

“What does home mean to you, Betty?” he asks, panning up to her face again. Betty leans on her hand, looking thoughtful. 

“I’m not sure, to be honest. I would say it’s more like a feeling, than a defined place, but that’s a bit cliche for you, I suppose.” She smiles wryly. 

“What kind of feeling?” He moves the camera around, but Betty senses she needs to just keep talking. 

“Warm, I guess. Like, do you remember that night when we were kids, when my parents were fighting, and so were yours, so we snuck off to your treehouse, and it was really crowded, because we were definitely getting to old to be up there. And you apologized, because it was cold and drafty? And I said I didn’t mind, because I would rather have been out there, in that freezing broken treehouse, than anywhere else? I think maybe that’s what home feels like. Like feeling safe. Like feeling like you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Betty’s face is warm, and she knows she must be blushing. Jughead is grinning at her, and her heart is pounding. 

“Wow. I, um.” Jughead laughs nervously, looking overwhelmed “I really don’t know what to say to that.” 

“Does that mean that I, little old Betty Cooper, have rendered the great Jughead Jones, Riverdale’s most famous author, speechless?” 

Her eyes are sparkling, and Jughead feels like he might die. 

“Man, this video is going to ruin my reputation.” he says, shaking his head. 

“How you managed to convince your followers that you were cool is beyond me, honestly.” Betty answers, laughing. 

“It’s because weird is the new cool, Betts.” 

“Oh, of course.” she sticks her tongue out at him. “So, Juggie, this is your film. What does home mean to you?” 

“You would think, since I picked this theme, I’d have an answer to this question. But I really don’t. I think maybe I took this assignment to figure it out.” Jughead shrugs, and almost looks a little sad. Betty moves one of her hands off camera and squeezes his arm. “Maybe feeling safe, I guess?” 

“That makes sense. I guess you never really had a lot of that.” Betty frowns, and Jughead puts one of his hands over hers. 

“I had the treehouse. I had you.” he says softly, shrugging again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i definitely thought i posted this chapter already, sorry for the delay! new chapter should be up next week, i am almost done! hope you guys enjoy! i'm on tumblr at elizabethbettscooper.tumblr.com if anyone wants to chat!


	13. trying to make you mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a long day of walking and driving and talking to Betty, Jughead is at home, reviewing the footage from the day. It’s good. He did a really good job, he knows that. But he’s dreading posting any of it. It’s going to be a disaster. It’s going to be like that scene, in that terrible Christmas movie Betty made him watch once, Love Actually. The scene where Keira Knightley watches the video footage of her wedding that the dude from The Walking Dead shot, and all the footage is of her, and she knows he’s in love with her.

After a long day of walking and driving and talking to Betty, Jughead is at home, reviewing the footage from the day. It’s good. He did a really good job, he knows that. But he’s dreading posting any of it. It’s going to be a disaster. It’s going to be like that scene, in that terrible Christmas movie Betty made him watch once, Love Actually. The scene where Keira Knightley watches the video footage of her wedding that the dude from The Walking Dead shot, and all the footage is of her, and she knows he’s in love with her. 

Except instead of Keira Knightley, it’s just going to be the entire goddamn internet. Everyone who follows him, and everyone in his film class, is going to watch this video, and know that he’s in love with Betty Cooper. Which is ridiculous, because they had no contact for like multiple years, and also he fell in love with her when he was like twelve years old. That doesn’t happen. 

And it certainly doesn’t happen to Forsythe “Jughead” Pendleton Jones III, of all people. 

The comments on the instagram post he made are already bad enough. People have given them a nickname hashtag, which Veronica has gleefully texted him about on multiple occasions in the hours since the post went up. 

Jughead scrolls through the comments, groaning slightly. 

_holy shit jones has real friends_   
_damn whos the hottie_   
_omg!! thats @betonbetty !_   
_aww what a cute pic of @betonbetty ! i’m totally team #bughead_   
_B!! You look beautiful! Mind yourself, Jones._

(That last one was definitely Veronica.)

“What have I done.” he said to himself, putting his phone on the desk and returning to working on his footage. 

Originally, there were going to be more aspects to this project. Footage of Archie, and the neighborhood Jughead lived in with his mom in Cleveland. But ever since he started talking to Betty again, none of those things felt right. He loved Archie, but he didn’t have the same relationship to Riverdale that Jughead did. And he lived in Cleveland, and it had been good for him, and he was thankful for everything his mother did for him, but he would never think of it as his hometown. 

His hometown was Riverdale, and his relationship with Riverdale was fraught. It was also inextricably tied up in Betty Cooper. So he was going to make this video, and he was going to leave her, and everything they said, in it. With her explicit permission, obviously. 

After all, he had said home was about safety. And what is safety but feeling comfortable with your own vulnerability?

Jughead stayed up until the very early morning, editing and splicing and putting music and transitional effects on this project. He knew, somehow, if he didn’t finish this and post this thing, as soon as possible, he never would. He had the strength and momentum now, and he had to do it. After confirming with Betty earlier in the process, the video finished publishing at 5:03 am, and Jughead promptly fell asleep sitting up at his desk. 

When he wakes up at 7:30 in the morning, he does not look at his phone or laptop. He shuts the laptop and drags himself to his bed. He manages to pull his shoes off before he falls asleep again, fully clothed on top of the covers. At 10am, his phone rings. Like, actually rings, like a human person is calling him. He groans, and lets it go to voicemail and tries to fall back asleep. Jughead does not want to be up this early, not today, or ever really, but especially not when he’s gotten no sleep. 

The phone rings again. With a louder groan, Jughead pulls himself out of bed and makes his way into the living room. He answers his phone without looking at who’s calling.

“What.” he barked, voice rough with sleep.

“Oh Jughead Jones. You sad, sad little puppy.” Veronica’s voice is on the other end of the phone, sounding equal parts perky and pitying. 

“Huh?” Jughead rubbed his eyes, staring at his beanie where it had fallen off in his sleep. 

“Your latest video project, what else? First of all, it’s beautiful, and very sweet. Second of all, the comments section is going to send both you and my darling best friend spiralling out of control.” her voice is sing song, and Jughead wants to throw something at her, but he can’t because they are talking on the phone. He blinks. 

“Wait, Betty is spiralling?” he asks, suddenly very awake. 

“Not yet, but I can’t imagine any other result.” Veronica says matter of factly. 

“Shit. _Shit._ Are you sure? I talked to her last night, she said she was fine with me posting it, even with all the dialogue left in.” Jughead runs a hand through his hair, on the edge of panic. 

“I just wanted to give you a heads up. Look at the comments, and call our girl please. Toodles.” 

Somehow, Jughead can hear Veronica wiggling her fingers goodbye. He immediately throws himself into his desk chair and opens his laptop, keeping his phone nearby. Pulling Betty’s contact info open on his phone, he braves the email linked to his youtube account.

“What have I woken up to??? I can’t breathe.... 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun DUN!!! hit me up on tumblr, i'm elizabethbettscooper


	14. trying to make you mine: part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so the last chap of this fucked up in posting and i literally only just noticed?? i'm so sorry y'all, lmao. so here's what should have been at the end of last update. i don't know how this happened. on the plus side, i am DONE with this story! so updates should be regular until we get to the end! next up: finishing the past dictates the future before kink week.

Somehow, Jughead can hear Veronica wiggling her fingers goodbye. He immediately throws himself into his desk chair and opens his laptop, keeping his phone nearby. Pulling Betty’s contact info open on his phone, he braves the email linked to his youtube account.

“What have I woken up to??? I can’t breathe...."

“BITCH I WOKE UP TO THIS AND MY BRAIN CANNOT COMPUTE” 

“*HYPERVENTILATING”

“They are so cute”

“WELL OKAY THEN.”

“*eyes emoji*”

There were dozens. Dozens of _nice_ ones. And then there were some not so nice ones. 

“can’t believe jones is pulling this pandering bullshit for views. i thought you were better than this, man.” 

“i don’t buy her story at all. who stops talking to a good friend for years and then just pops back into their life? i smell someone who wants attention.” 

“youtube really is going down hill if even j jones is selling out w some dumb blonde.”

Jughead groans audibly, and grabs his phone. He fires off a quick text to Betty and tells her that he’s going to call her as soon as he can so they can talk. Then he pops his camera into his tripod, and turns it on. He’s still in yesterday’s clothes, and his hair is a rumpled mess, but if he doesn’t do this now, it isn’t happening. So he presses record, and, after running a hand nervously through his hair, he speaks. 

“I share a lot of myself, and my past, and my life, with my viewers. Recently, I even opened up about my sexual and romantic orientations. Honesty is important to me, as a storyteller, and as a person. I shared a video yesterday, that talked a lot about my past and the past of someone close to me.” 

He sighed, pausing for a moment to stare at the ground before looking back into the camera. 

“Some of you know this person. She has her own internet presence. We recently reconnected after years of not talking for various reasons. Neither of us have shared all of that information with our respective followers, because it is our business. I am allowed to be private about things, and so is Betty. Some of the responses to her presence in my video yesterday were just… disgusting. Hateful. And so fucking judgemental! And some of you seemed to think you were protecting me, by making these awful accusations at someone I care for, and that’s frustrating.” 

“I know that by putting my content out on the internet, I open myself up to hate and criticism. I know that. I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is having people who claim to be my supporters disrespect someone I care about when they know nothing about her. Betty Cooper is one of the strongest, most caring, and generally best people I know. There are a host of reasons we lost contact once we’d both left Riverdale. Maybe someday you guys will learn about some or all of those, or maybe you won’t. I don’t care. I know those reasons, I know who Betty is to me. Further comments about her that mistreat her in any way will be deleted.” 

Jughead posts the video, completely unedited, and dials Betty’s number as he walks outside.  
She picks up on the second ring. 

“Juggie–” she starts, her voice shaky. 

“I know, I saw the comments. I posted another video, which I’m realizing now might just make things worse, but I had to say something, and anyway, I’m on my way to Syracuse so,” Jughead explains, putting his phone on speaker and into his cupholder. 

“Jug, it’s not just about the comments its– wait, what do you mean on your way to Syracuse?” Betty asks from the other end of the line. 

“I mean I am in my car, driving to your building, because I know it’s not just the comments, and this isn’t a conversation I want to have over the phone. Or over facetime, for that matter.” his voice is soft, and he hears Betty huff out a sigh on the other end of the phone. 

“Drive safe, okay Juggie?” she whispers. 

“Promise.” Jughead says, nodding at nothing.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 

Betty hangs up the phone. She takes a deep breath and puts a soft stress ball in either of her palms, and does not scroll through the comments section as she clicks play on the video Jughead posted of their trip yesterday. She watches the way his camera lingers on her face, smile on her lips, hair blowing in the wind as she drives. Quiet, music-box like music is laid over the dialogue, louder in the quiet moments. Most of the talking is their actual conversations, but it’s cut with bits of narration from Jughead. 

It’s the end of the video that gets to Betty the most. It’s a long clip of her driving, Riverdale fading away in the background. As their hometown fades away, Jughead’s voice fades in. He’s telling a story, something she remembers well. Their last night, hidden away in the tree house, before Jughead moved away. 

“I left home that day,” Jughead’s narration says “Not because I left Riverdale, New York behind for Toledo, Ohio, but because I left behind that old tree house, and a blonde angel with a perfect ponytail who always told me it would be okay. And she was the only person I ever believed. I guess that she was right, after all. It was okay. I did come home eventually.” 

There’s no talking at the end of the clip, just the sound of the wind. The sun is setting behind Betty as she drives, and a faint giggle can be heard as she looks at the camera, grinning and sticking her tongue past the edge of her teeth. The screen fades to black, and Betty buries her head in her hands. Bracing herself, she clicks the subscriptions tab, to watch Jughead’s new video he mentioned. It’s only a few minutes long, so it had uploaded quickly. The title is simple, it’s just “In Response to Comments on ‘Coming Home’”. 

The look in Jughead’s eyes as he stresses and frets and frowns, trying to frame his thoughts in the short, ranty video makes Betty’s heart ache. She doesn’t think she’s reading too much into the videos, she thinks that’s why he’s driving down here. Because it isn’t just about the comments, it’s about the way he says her name, and the way the camera always lingers on her face, and the way that she is always already looking over at him. 

Stress is threatening to tear her apart, so Betty leaves the living room for her kitchen and starts ripping things out of cabinets. Whisks, and eggs, and different kinds of sugar, lemon juice, cream of tartar. There’s nothing better than meringues to get some good old fashioned pent up energy. Betty stares intently at the eggs whites as she whips them by hand, watching them go from runny to frothy to glossy. Her wrist and shoulders ache with the strain, and it gives her the same feeling of relief a good long workout. The same relief she used to get from driving her nails into her palms. But she can’t do that anymore, so she whips egg whites to glossy stiff peaks, and adds food dye and sugar to turn them sky blue. 

One by one, Betty pipes neat meringue kisses onto the baking sheet. Eventually she runs out of egg whites, but her body still vibrates with excess energy, so after she loads them into the oven and sets two timers, one for baking and one for drying, she moves onto another set of baking implements and another recipe. Soft batch cookies, something that would need to set in the fridge before baking, giving the meringues time to finish. She creams butter and sugar violently. She adds three flavors of baking chips. She puts the finished dough in the fridge and moves onto cleaning up her mess. 

Betty is wrist deep in dishes when someone knocks on the door. She dries her hands hastily, but soap suds still cling to her skin in a few places as she tucks the towel in the crook of her elbow and pulls the door open. Jughead is standing in her doorway, out of breath, and a little bit sweaty. 

“Hi.” he says, panting.

“Hey,” Betty replies, breathless.


	15. love like ours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey,” Jughead said, staring into her eyes, voice soft but firm “I will never think anything about you is stupid.”

He has this look in his eyes, and he’s just staring at her, and suddenly he’s reaching through her doorway and pulling her against his chest and his lips are on hers and his hands are in her hair and her hands are on his chest, twisted into his shirt. There are damp spots and soap suds left behind by her hands. He pulls away, and he’s still looking at her, and Betty doesn’t know what to call it, so she just kisses him again, and she can feel his heart pounding against her own chest, and she tangles her fingers in his hair. 

Jughead pulls back again, and his hands are cradling her face while his thumbs stroke her cheeks, and Betty thinks that if he kept looking at her like that, maybe she could do literally anything. 

“Hi,” Jughead says again, his voice rough. 

“Hi.” Betty answers, her through bubbling with something between a laugh and a happy sob. 

“So, um,” he stuttered, looking down at her, his eyes growing nervous. 

“You kissed me.” she said, smiling. 

“I did, in fact, kiss you. I kissed Betty Cooper.” he replied, sounding incredulous, a smile sneaking its way onto his face. 

“And you drove all the way here just to… kiss me? See me?” Betty tilted her head, looking up at him, her eyes vulnerable. 

“Seeing you was the plan, but then I did see you and I just.... I had to. I had to make sure you knew.” Jughead blushes, and pulls one hand away to rub nervously at his neck. Betty reached back and tangled his fingers with her own, pulling their hands to their sides. 

“Do you think this is crazy?” she asks softly, staring down at their feet “I mean, we hadn’t seen each other in years.” 

“Maybe. But I don’t think I care.” Jughead shook his head, and used a finger to tilt her chin up, her eyes meeting his “I spent years, _years_ missing you, Betty. Wishing that maybe I’d told you, before I moved. Wishing that I’d kept in better touch.”

“Me too.” she whispered, curling her free hand into the collar of Jughead’s shirt. “I thought about you all the time, it was so stupid I didn’t try and stay in touch better, or find you again. And then I found your videos and… and…” Betty trailed off, blushing and shaking her head. “Never mind, it’s stupid. You’ll think it’s stupid.” 

“Hey,” Jughead said, staring into her eyes, voice soft but firm “I will never think anything about you is stupid.” 

“Finding your videos, it felt like fate. Like a sign. Like I’d been wandering around all these years, and the universe was finally telling me to go home.” her voice is quiet, barely audible even in the silent apartment. Jughead pulls her in for a crushing hug, pressing her face into his chest. betty fists the back of his flannel, clutching him tightly. 

“I love you,” Jughead said suddenly, his voice intense “I have always loved you.” 

Betty slid her hands from his back to his neck, playing with his shirt collar as she looked up at him, her eyes soft and shining. 

“I love you too. I think I’ve loved you forever.” she whispered, still looking softly into his eyes. 

Jughead kissed her again, pulling her so tight against him that her feet lifted off the ground, causing her to giggle and cling to him even more tightly. He spun her around playfully, walking them further into her living room and then shutting the door behind them. Once the door is closed, he lets her down, but doesn’t ease his grip on her. 

“You okay, Betts?” he asks, eyes going serious “Some of those comments were… not great.” he frowns slightly, moving one hand to stroke her cheek again. 

“It’s hardly the first time someone has said something nasty about me on the internet, Juggie. It hurts, but it doesn’t matter. You know those things about me aren’t true. And I know that. And anyone who knows us and cares about us will know that. And that’s what matters really, isn’t it?” 

“Wise as always, Betty Cooper.” Jughead smiled at her, and she blushed softly. 

“Do you wanna stay? Order in something to eat? I was cooking when you got here, but just sweets.” she looks at him, eyes hopeful, and he nods. 

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great.” he grins, and she returns the expression, then presses herself to him in yet another tight hug.

“Pizza? There’s an amazing place that delivers, and they’re open late.” 

“Pizza sounds great, Betts.” Jughead says, and releases their hug, moving to slide an arm around her shoulder instead while she leads him into her living room. She snags a menu from a side table drawer, and Jughead flops onto her couch, and she falls into place beside him, draping her legs over his lap, and brandishing the menu at him. 

“We should order two pizzas. I assume you can still order a whole one by yourself?” she raised an eyebrow, and Jughead laughed. 

“Oh yeah. C’mon, Betts, don’t you know me at all?” he smirked, and Betty blushed. 

“I like to think so.” she nudged him with her shoulder, and he put an arm around her. “So um… what kind of pizza do you want?” 

“Hey, you know the menu, not me. I trust you.” Jughead chucked the underside of her chin with one finger and grinned. Betty nodded, scrolling down her phone screen and then dialing a number. 

“Yes, Fiorelli’s? I’d like to place an order on Betty Cooper’s account. Yes, the same address. Mhm. Okay, I’d like an order of garlic knots, an order of mozzarella sticks, extra marinara for dipping, one medium caprese, and one large pizza that’s half italian meat trio, and half hawaiian. Yep. Oh and can I get one strawberry lemonade and, hold on,” Betty moved the phone from her mouth, and looked over at Jughead “What do you want to drink, Juggie?”

“Uh, root beer?” He shrugged. 

“Okay, and then one root beer. Yes, that’s all. Mhm. Okay, thank you so much! Bye!” She hung up the phone and nodded decisively. “It should be here in about an hour.” 

“Sounds great.” Jughead nodded, smiling awkwardly. 

For a moment, they sat in somewhat awkward silence. 

“So,” Betty said, shifting softly from one foot to the other “You and me, huh?”

“Yeah. I guess so.” Jughead rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Do we talk about it? Do we tell people? What do we tell people?” Betty frowned, starting to wring her hands, and Jughead reached over to take them in his own. “Sorry, I haven’t really dated, honestly. I don’t know what the protocol here is, and it’s not like it can be normal and casual because… it’s _us_ , Jug.” 

“It’s okay. I haven’t really dated either. You know, you saw the video.” 

“That’s another thing, too. I don’t know what you want, or what you’re comfortable with, and I hardly know what I want or what I’m comfortable with to begin with. I don’t want things to get messy, I just found you again, and we’re probably going to muck it all up, and––”

“Hey,” Jughead said soothingly, cutting off Betty’s panicked rambling to put a hand on either side of her face, gently stroking her skin “We’ll figure it out. Just another mystery for Cooper and Jones to solve, right?” his eyes were so soft and open when he looked at her, and Betty felt like she was melting. 

“You’re right. I’m just scared. I was so afraid of looking into the past for so long, but now I guess I’m afraid of the change that comes next.” Betty reached out to him, pulling herself over and into his lap to hug him tightly. 

“I’m scared too, Betts. I’m fucking terrified. You are one of the only good things I have ever had in my life, and I am so worried I am going to fuck this up. It’s not like I had a good role model growing up, not until I moved anyway, and I feel like the damage was already done by the time Gladys got me.” he wrapped his arms around Betty’s waist, letting his thumb rub softly against her ribs. 

“We’re both working from a disadvantage. My parents were a trainwreck. Your mom is pretty good, but she wasn’t around for various reasons, and your father is…” Betty trails off, unsure what’s an acceptable way to phrase what’s on her mind.

“An alcoholic jackass who wouldn’t know how to be a good dad if it bit him on the nose?” Jughead raises an eyebrow, and Betty puts her hands up in mock surrender. 

“You said it, not me.” she said, smiling shyly. “But at least it’s both of us, you know? Both children of divorces long coming with a small number of reasonable family members. You have Gladys and JB, and I have Polly and…. Cheryl, somehow. Now that’s a mystery that needs solving, how I ended up in a place I count Cheryl Blossom as a reasonable family member.” Betty smiled again, laughing slightly. 

“So we’re both screwed up, and we’re both scared. But we both want this. Right?” Jughead furrows his eyebrows, suddenly doubtful. Betty nods, taking his hands in hers as she spins to face him. 

“Of course. _Of course_ I want this too. I think it might be the only thing I ever wanted this much.” She smiles at him warmly, and leans her forehead against his as he lays his hands on her lower back. 

“So we both want this. And you’re sitting in my lap. And we kissed. I guess that means I can call you my girlfriend?” Jughead raises an eyebrow, his voice hopeful but still cautious. Betty beams. 

“Yeah, I guess it does. And if I’m your girlfriend, I guess that makes you my boyfriend.” she replies, and her voice is light and playful as she leans closer into his chest. 

“I guess it does.” Jughead says with a nod, smirking now, and once more puts a crooked finger under Betty’s chin, leaning her lips up to his to catch them in another kiss. Betty can feel Jughead’s heart beating against her own, and the solid warmth of his hand on her lower back, and the softness of his lips on her own, and she doesn’t think she has ever felt so loved, so cherished, so safe. She sighs into the kiss, winding her arms lazily around his neck as she relaxes into him, boneless and warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and it finally happened!!! whooo! one chapter and an epilogue left guys! and the potential for follow up drabbles, of course.


	16. you light the spark in my bonfire heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jughead stays over. It would be unsafe, Betty had said, for him to drive back so late, when he was so tired. And when he’d tried to sleep on her floor, then her sofa, she’d pestered and pouted until he agreed to share her bed with her.

Jughead stays over. It would be unsafe, Betty had said, for him to drive back so late, when he was so tired. And when he’d tried to sleep on her floor, then her sofa, she’d pestered and pouted until he agreed to share her bed with her. They hadn't done anything, but they talked until sleep slowly faded in, with Betty curled close to him, her head on his chest and her hand in his. In the past handful of years, Jughead has spent a lot of time trying to feel at home. JB and Gladys and his grandparents’ house had come close, it really had. It had been a wonderful place to spend his last years of high school, watching his sister grow, watching his mother heal from what FP had done to her, to them. Getting to know a new portion of his family. But something had always been missing, and he feels it, here and now, in Betty’s bed. 

It’s not just because it’s Betty, though that’s part of it. A big part, Jughead won’t kid himself. But another part of that is the history. When he was in Toledo, and then later when he was finding his way through dorm rooms and friends’ couches and shitty apartments, he was still always just running away. Keeping his eyes straight forward, like if he dared glance into the rearview mirror, then Riverdale would suck him back in. But now the past, at least a piece of it, was right here, laying beside him. Betty’s arm across his chest felt less like gravity dragging him down and more like the comforting weight of a blanket on a cold day. 

Eyelids fluttering gently against her cheeks, Betty stirs, shifting even closer to him as a soft smile spreads across her face and she opens her eyes, glancing up at Jughead sleepily. 

“Hey.” she said quietly, reaching out to wind a hand into his hair. 

“Morning.” he whispered, brushing a thumb over her cheekbone. 

“I kind of can’t believe you’re still here.” Betty murmurs, looking him over “Not because I thought you’d have left, or anything. It just feels kind of like a dream.”

“I know what you mean.” he replies, nodding, thumb still warm against the blush of her cheek. She shuts her eyes, leaning into his touch and sighing. 

“Do you want to go get breakfast? There’s a diner I like nearby. It’s not Pop’s, but it’s got coffee and bacon and pie.” she blinks at him, and he can feel his heart melting. He nods. 

“Breakfast sounds amazing, Betts.” he grins, leaning into kiss her softly. His hands tangled in her hair, warm on her scalp and neck. She pulled him close, returning the kiss before burying her face in his neck. 

“I love you.” Betty says quietly, landing a quick peck on Jughead’s lips before pulling herself out of bed. She pulls a few articles of clothing from her closet and slips into the bathroom to change. While she’s there, Jughead straightens the clothes he slept in best he can, swapping the oversized pair of sweats Betty gave him for his jeans, and taming his hair in Betty’s vanity mirror. 

“Are we driving or walking?” Jughead asks as Betty emerges from the bathroom, looking slightly fresher but just as light and glowing. She reaches over and takes his hand, leaning into him. 

“It isn’t too far. Let’s walk.” 

Together, they headed out of the building and out into the quiet morning, Betty leading the way. The little diner she liked to visit on mornings she woke up early was only a few blocks from her apartment. She’d spent many a quiet morning or late evening there, with a cup of tea or coffee and a snack, reading a novel or scribbling in a notebook. It was one of her favorite places in her little corner of the city, and she was unspeakably happy to share it with Jughead. With her _boyfriend_. 

“It’s a shame we missed out on this for so many years.” Betty says partway through their walk. 

“It is. But we might have messed it all up, if we were younger.” Jughead replies, rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. 

“I know. And I feel crazy enough as it is, having a crush on the same boy since I was a kid.” Betty blushes and laughs, glancing over at Jughead shyly. 

“Really? You had a crush on me when we were kids?” Jughead looked over, half teasing, half genuinely inquisitive. 

“Come on, Jug! It was so obvious! You were so nice to me, and so smart and funny. I loved talking to you. I still do. And even back then, you were pretty sweet under that spiky, sarcastic exterior.” Betty bumps Jughead’s shoulder with her own, playfully sticking her tongue out. 

“Sweet to you, yes. But mostly because I was sweet _on_ you.” Jughead said with a smirk, and Betty laughed at his choice of words “I had it bad for you, Betts, and I’m pretty sure everyone knew it. Especially our friends.”

“Well, at least we figured it out eventually. But crushes and love aside, I really wish I’d made more of an effort to stay in touch with you. I hate the we just… lost five years. Not because we could have gotten together sooner, but because we were such good friends, you know? I hate that I missed that time with you.” Betty guides them around a corner, stepping closer to Jughead to lean her head on his shoulder for a moment. He slips his hand from hers and winds it around her waist instead, giving her a reassuring squeeze. 

“I could have tried harder too.” he said quietly. 

“You had other stuff going on–” Betty started, but Jughead shook his head, interrupting her. 

“So did you, Betts. If anything, once I settled in with Gladys and JB, I probably had it easier than you did. I missed my friends, and you, and a lot of things about Riverdale, and I resented the hell out of my dad, but once I understood Gladys’ motives and got to know her again… I was pretty happy there. I had a responsible parent. I had my sister. Sure, I didn’t have many friends, but for all your popular girl next door image in high school, neither did you.” Jughead’s voice is gentle, and he’s rubbing a thumb along her ribcage as they walk. Betty stops suddenly, causing Jughead to stop too, and turns to envelop him in a hug, burying her face in his neck and squeezing as hard as she can. 

“You are the most wonderful, astonishing person I have ever met, Jughead Jones.” she said, voice low and serious, putting her hands on his face. “I am so lucky to know you and love you. No matter how long it took. I would have waited even longer.” her voice is sweet and her eyes are full of stars. Jughead tilts her head up to his and kisses her, slow and gentle, pulling her as close as he can on some random street corner in Syracuse. 

“Well, color me speechless, Betty Cooper.” he whispered, leaning in to kiss her again, stroking her jawline with his thumb “I would have waited forever for you. I love you.” 

“I love you too.” she smiled, leaning up to press a lingering kiss to his jaw “Now, let’s go eat.” she waved a hand to the side, where a little diner with a pink neon sign was waiting for them. 

“Mm, my two favorites. Diner food, and you.” he smirks at her again, winking, and she shoves him, giggling. 

“Weirdo.” Betty says playfully, and he pulls open the door for her, letting her walk in first. 

They take a wooden booth in the back of the diner, and Betty slides in beside Jughead, instead of sitting on the opposite side of the table. It’s a gross, couple-y thing to do, but she wants to be close to him, wants to feel him warm and solid next to her for as long as possible. When they finally leave the diner, after too many cups of coffee and a whole lot of pancakes, Betty feels at peace. She’s burrowed into Jughead’s side as they make their way back to her apartment. She tugs at his shirt, stopping him, and he looks down at her curiously. 

“I want to take a picture of us. I don’t ever want to forget how peaceful and happy and at home I feel right now.” 

Jughead rolls his eyes playfully, but pulls her even closer so Betty can snap a quick selfie of them. Later, when Jughead is scribbling plans for the next few weeks in a notebook at Betty’s table, sprawled on the floor, she puts the picture up on instagram, taking the time to write out a caption. 

_I spent a long time trying to run away from home. Somewhere along the way, it found me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter to go! it's just a fun lil epilogue! check my tumblr elizabethbettscooper for the insta post in this chap! love yall! <3


	17. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I can’t believe you convinced me to do this.” Jughead said, laughing. He was sitting on Betty’s couch, watching her. 
> 
> “C’mon Juggie, it’ll be fun! And we both know you’ve never been as cool and aloof as you like to think you are.” Betty laughed, sticking her tongue out at her boyfriend while she fiddled with the settings on her camera. It was on a tripod just a little bit in front of her coffee table, pointing at the worn blue couch.

“I can’t believe you convinced me to do this.” Jughead said, laughing. He was sitting on Betty’s couch, watching her. 

“C’mon Juggie, it’ll be fun! And we both know you’ve never been as cool and aloof as you like to think you are.” Betty laughed, sticking her tongue out at her boyfriend while she fiddled with the settings on her camera. It was on a tripod just a little bit in front of her coffee table, pointing at the worn blue couch. 

“Listen, Betts, I have a reputation to maintain, however tenuous.” he smirked, and Betty set the timer on her camera, readying it to record in ten seconds, giving her time to sit down on the sofa. They were still giggling and mucking around when the flash went off, signalling that filming had begun. 

“Well, there’s our first edit, I guess.” Betty said with a laugh, turning to the camera with a smile as she fixed her hair, ruffled from Jughead attempting to give her a nougie. “Hey everyone! It’s Betty, and I’m here with Jughead, also know as jjonesiii, and today we’re making a fun little video together. As most of our viewers know by now, Jug and I grew up in the same town.” 

“It was an unfortunate little place called Riverdale, and nothing good ever happened there.” Jughead offered, looking over at Betty with a sly smile. 

“Okay, Jug, I think we’ve both decided by now some good came out of it, right?” she nudged him with her elbow and smiled, and Jughead rolled his eyes. “Anyway, so Jug and I grew up together and we were actually best friends. It was myself, Jug, and our other friend, Archie Andrews. Some of you guys might know him, he posts music videos.” 

“He’s also tall and ginger. Very hard to miss. Usually shirtless.” Jughead rolled his eyes. 

“Wow, has he really not grown out of that. Sorry, Arch.” Betty laughed, and then waved a hand apologetically towards the camera “So we all grew up together, but people moved, and life happened and for years we didn’t see each other or talk.” 

“And we found each other again over youtube. Betts and I have been hanging out lately, helping each other on projects, catching up on the last five years of our lives. See, back in high school, I had this crush on Betty. Very cliche, I know. Moody loner falls for the pretty blonde girl next door. Tragic, truly.” Jughead was arching an eyebrow as he spoke to the camera, Betty giggling beside him. 

“Oh hush, Jug. Assuming it’s obvious by now, from the title of the video and recent instagram posts, Jughead and I are together. It’s new, but we figured it would be easier to be upfront about it. And have a little fun by doing some questions on the boyfriend tag. See if we still know each other after all these years.” Betty bumps their shoulders together. 

“I’m even going to let Betty tell you my real name. Brace yourselves.” 

“You first. What’s my full name?” Betty read from a list on her phone.

“Elizabeth Ann Cooper.”Jughead rattled off easily, grinning. 

“Yup. Nothing too interesting. Nothing like Mr. Jones full name. Forsythe Pendleton Jones,” she paused for dramatic effect “The third.” 

“We can still decide to censor that later, right? At least my whole first name? Please?” Jughead rolled his eyes and scrunched his nose, as if his name smelled unpleasant. 

“We’ll consider it.” Betty replied, smiling easily. “When and where did we meet?”

“We were five. Well, I was five, it was my fifth birthday. You were four still, technically.” Jughead smirked. 

“Jug’s been lording the fact that he’s two months older over me our entire lives.”

“Archie dragged you to my birthday party and you got upset because he didn’t tell you it was a birthday party and you didn’t bring a present. Then the next weekend you made your mom bake cupcakes, and forced Archie to show you where my house was. Then you just never left me alone again.” 

“I wouldn’t phrase it that way, but the gist is there. Now, ask me one.” Betty smiled again, and passed her phone to Jughead, who tapped his chin dramatically as he scrolled. 

“What is,” Jughead cleared his throat “my favorite flavor of ice cream?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Bean and Terry’s Funky Monkey. I saw you eat a whole pint in less than twenty minutes. It was terrifying, but also kind of awe inspiring.” Betty laughed again, reaching over for her phone. 

“Ah, so that’s what won you over. Makes sense.” Jughead nodded, his face perfectly neutral.

“What’s my favorite car?” Betty asked after a moment’s pause. 

“1954 Chevy Bel Air, preferably powder blue and white. Mint and red are also acceptable, not at the same time.”

“Good memory, Jug.” Betty grinned, nudging him. “Also, a mint green and cherry red car would be a nightmare. I would cause traffic accidents.” she laughed and handed Jughead the phone again. 

“What song reminds you of me?” he asks.

“That’s not an easily provable fact, Jug, but I will play along because I have a good answer.”

“I follow the spirit of the law, not the letter, Betts.” Jughead stuck his tongue out, and Betty rolled her eyes. 

“Has Kev been talking your ear off about Swords and Serpents again? You’re sounding very chaotic good. Anyway, a song that reminds me of you is ‘Up The Wolves’ by The Mountain Goats. Their songs have always made me think of you, honestly, but that one especially.” Betty shrugged, looking somewhat shy about her answer. 

“I’ll take it. I do like that song.” Jughead had clearly taken this statement as a compliment, and looked somewhat flustered, fidgeting with his sleeves. “Gladys had this CD she would play a lot, when she had a bad day at work, I think it was a movie soundtrack. And it has this Cat Stevens song on it, ‘If You Wanna Sing Out, Sing Out’, and it always made me think of you.” 

There’s a moment of awkward, but not strictly uncomfortable, silence between the two. Finally, they both dissolve into giggles, leaning closer together, and Betty makes a mental note to put a cut in when she edits the footage. 

“Anyway, um,” Betty says with a laugh, scanning the list of questions “When did you first tell me you loved me?” 

“For real? Or when we were kids? Hell, let’s go with both. I’m pretty sure the first time I ever said the words ‘I love you’ to you was in fourth grade around Christmas, because you made an entire batch of cookies just for me, because I always ate so many of the ones you made for the Andrews-Coopers-Jones trifecta Christmas party. The first time I told you I loved you as an adult was in your entryway, the morning after I posted that video of our day in Riverdale.” 

“You heard it here first, viewers. Jughead Jones has loved me since the fourth grade.” Betty leans over, nudging him, and he flushes as he laughs sarcastically. 

“Hardy har, Betts. My turn.” he takes the phone from her, leaving an arm slung over her shoulder after reaching for it “What’s my favorite movie?”

“Trick question, Jones. You have more than one, because you have a favorite film in each of your preferred genre. But among your favorites would be Grindhouse, Inland Empire, and Rear Window.” 

“People who only have one favorite movie are not to be trusted. And for the record, I know you can never choose between your top two, Blue Velvet and Amelie.”

“We should have a Lynch marathon. How have we not done that?” Betty turned and looked at him seriously. Jughead laughed. 

“Because we only just reconnected and started dating even more recently than that, Betty. Now ask me another question.” 

“So bossssssy.” Betty drawled, sticking out her tongue. “What’s my favorite love song?” 

“I–” Jughead paused, tilting his head “I don’t think I know this one, actually, but if I had to guess, I’d say probably something Sinatra.” 

“Good guess! It’s ‘It Had to be You’. Do you even have a favorite love song?”

“Of course I do. I’m not an animal. It’s “I’ll Melt With You” by Modern English.” Jughead smiles. 

“Ah, the eighties. I never expected any less from you, Juggie.” Betty grinned at him, easy and affectionate. 

“Led Zeppelin’s ‘Thank You’ is a close second though. The only good thing my father ever gave me was his taste in music.” Jughead said, keeping his voice as light as possible. Betty slipped into a slight frown, leaning over and rubbing his shoulder. 

“I love that song.” Betty smiled softly “I feel like I need to name a modern song now though, just to prove at least one of us owns a radio. ‘Home’ by Gabrielle Aplin is good one.” 

“We’re very off track.” Jughead said, moving on from his slip of the tongue with a forced laugh and a thankful smile at Betty. She handed him her phone. “What’s my favorite book?”

“Yet another trick question, because you don’t have just one, and I know for a fact they change all the time. Some of your favorite authors are Stephen King, Christopher Moore, and Agatha Christie, so that will have to do.” Betty answered after a moment of thought. 

“Fair. And yours is, as we all know, Beloved by Toni Morrison.” Jughead said with a nod. 

“Correct! Okay, I think that’s enough questions for now. If there’s anything you guys want to know about us, leave it in the comments, and maybe we’ll answer in a q and a at some point! For now, we have a road trip to embark on, so we have to get moving. I’m sure you guys will hear all about it. Bye for now!” Betty grinned and waved before getting up to turn her camera off, then falling back into the sofa. Jughead smiled at her, soft and easy. 

“Ready to hit the road?” he asked, leaning over and tucking her hair behind one ear. She smiled, nodding. 

“Cleveland, Ohio, here we come.” Betty said with a nod, gesturing a hand to their bags in front of her door. 

“I love you.” Jughead said as he stood, then pulled Betty to her feet. She beamed at him, pressing a kiss to the side of his mouth as she draped her arms over his shoulders. 

“I love you too. But that doesn’t mean you get sole control of the car radio.” she answered with a giggle, before taking his hand and tugging him towards the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is! the end! for now, anyway. i very well might do some one shots in this verse. hope you guys enjoyed the ride! <3


End file.
